Sean Penn's (1991) screen-writing and directorial debut, "The Indian Runner," is an overlong story of Joe Roberts, a small-town Nebraska police chief trying to help his f___-up younger brother Frank. The contrast of the solid-citizen brother and the outlaw brother seems very Sam Shepherd, though it looks (and lasts!) as if it had been filmed by Michelangelo Antonionni (whose visual influence also seemed strong in Penn's third film and first masterpiece, The Pledge).

David Morse (who also starred in Penn's second movie, The Crossing Guard and more recently in "The Green Mile," "Dancer in the Dark," and "Double Vision") is very good as the brother who landed on his feet when the family farm was lost (by a devastated Charles Bronson, married to a bloated and dying Sandy Dennis, who was a genuine Nebraska native and was appearing in her last film). In the showier "bad seed" part (in the tradition of Eric Roberts and, um, Sean Penn) as the younger brother, Viggo Mortensen (yes, the future Aragorn of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) had ample opportunity to act out — and had a scene of full frontal nudity and multiple opportunities to show off his tattooed torso. When his father remarks that many servicemen came back from Vietnam confused, Joe reminds him that Frank went into the military confused and with a long history of frequent problems with the law.

Patricia Arquette gets to scream and cower as the woman who gets involved with Frank — and to give birth in a montage with a murder. Dennis Hopper shows up to leer maniacally (and more). Valeria Golino is the more emotionally mature wife who helps Joe center on his nuclear family (her and their young son). Practically the only comic relief (at least for those who don't find Patricia Arquette's screams comic...) is Golino smoking marijuana with enough discretion that Joe does not have to take official cognizance of it.

The musical score is very well chosen. The look and options for the characters are as bleak as the Nebraska of "Boys Don't Cry" (or the Pennsylvania of At Close Range in which Penn played the survivor to the menacing Christopher Walken).

Alas, the editing is very inadequate, Although there is some material that seems pretentious and self-indulgent in "The Indian Runner" and in Penn's second film,The Crossing Guard, and although both go on far too long, there was also promise of a serious film-maker in Penn's first two films, both of which have a split of male characters that it is hard not to see as reflecting his own duality as an accomplished artist and a bar-room brawler.


Recommended:
Yes