"Untouched" acquits itself as a wonderfully rich and nuanced crime drama that somehow manages to stand toe-to-toe with legitimately classic Hollywood films of its same ilk. It's the kind of movie you might feed to a devout indie film skeptic as a gateway drug to other great indies, as it truly succeeds in blurring the lines between endless major studio resources and traditional indie constraints.
Mitch is an attorney with the kind of demons you'd find at a bar in Dante's nine circles of hell. Played with an elite sense of complication by Chip Lane, Mitch gets himself immersed in the defense of a teenage girl accused of murder, with her alleged newborn the alleged victim. Shot in the idyllic South of smaller-town Georgia, the young woman and the emerging social complexities of her situation trigger the full-blown resurfacing of Mitch's own unresolved backstory, which he fruitlessly tries to suppress by drenching himself in booze. As he peers behind the curtain of the community in search of essential but well-hidden truths, a fascinating symbiotic relationship emerges naturally and cleverly from the "Untouched." We come to realize that the resolution of Mitch's own long-festering wounds may be a prerequisite to redeeming the young woman he now represents.
"Untouched" does a wonderful job of presenting two parallel-running stories and driving them to a point of convergence. As the story pulls the mask off some darker realities and drives toward its well-crafted resolution, there's a sense here that we're been treated to some remarkable storytelling craft in this modern iteration of one of film's most long-standing genre vehicles. Highly recommended. - (Was this review of use to you? If so, let me know by clicking "Helpful." Cheers!)
