The Integrity of Joseph Chambers

Insurance Salesman Joe decides to champion his inner Bear Grylls and challenge his surgical skills in the wild. Armed with a rifle, he aims to shoot a deer.

This surprised me somewhat, I rather enjoyed it, a story of foolishness and trying to prove a point. It doesn't go as I expected, which is in its favour. Pacing has been pointed out by several as an issue, but if argue it's purposefully slow, feeling as though it was done in real time, it doesn't lurch from one action scene to the next. Efforts were made to make the film seem realistic.

A film about masculinity, it actually made for something of a change to the recent films I've seen, where masculinity is simply deemed bad, here it does at least explore and question it.

Considering Clayne Crawford does most of the film solo, he does a pretty fine job, a good performance.

Overall, this was much better than I expected.

7/10.

Self portrait of just how unprepared we are, for just about everything. This is a bit of a dark comedy in that a regular working joe who's a good guy decides to go deer hunting on land owned by a friend, but he knows nothing about shooting hunting or even how to walk thru the woods. After much distraction contemplation and singing to himself, a deer finally appears in a field just ahead of him easily within rifle range. He is totally clueless as what to do next and starts running after the deer with his rifle, when something completely unexpected happens, leaving him to do something men are actually good at. Messing things up, then trying to cover it up. Worth watching to observe what modernity convenience and easy living have made us into, even with our best intentions.

This is not a shoot 'em up or an action flick, with the one shot actually fired occurring almost by accident. The real meaning is to be found only in the message, which is both clever and delivered subtly. Pay attention to the beliefs of the family that are revealed in just a few lines of dialogue. Modern moviegoers don't like having to pay attention.

Muchgrace.church.

As you can see I have very mixed feelings about this curate's egg.

The set up is great. A city boy has married a country girl and wants to prove that he can go hunting in local woods in his own Alexander Supertramp moment. He has no experience, no idea and no chance of success. Every stumble over a twig or branch is torture. His fumbling loading of the gun is cringeworthy. The ease with which he gets distracted is mind numbing.

I won't say how all this plays out but we can see it coming a mile away. This is mostly because of the interminable slow pace of the film which will have the average viewer anxiously looking at their watch fro a half hour in.

Could have been a short story.

I am rarely this negative on a movie, but the fact that all those reviews that gave this a great rating got me suckered into wasting my time watching this...? Don't be fooled like I was!

This movie simply is not working h the time it takes to watch. It is one of the SLOWEST moving movies that I have ever seen! And it's not like a "Good" slow, either. You know, the kinda that actually rewards your anticipation with a great scene. Nope. This movie is literally filled with scenes that drag on, and on, and on, and on... and the fact that there is hardly ANY dialogue going on in this movie only makes these scenes MORE brutal! It truly feels like the film maker was just trying to fill in a bunch of "dead time" to make this movie as long as it is. Because honestly, this story could have been told 20-30 minutes.

What an utter waste of time. Don't bother!

Joseph Chambers sells insurance for a living and he apparently makes a good living doing so. He is seen at the start of the story dressing up for a solo hunting adventure, much to the displeasure of his wife. Against her wise advice, the city slicker borrows a deer rifle from a friend for his first expedition.

His trek eventually turns out badly and the second half of the movie has Joseph making a few important decisions.

His future is dependent upon what moral choices he will ultimately make. Clayne Crawford is on screen alone for most of the film and he is excellent as Joseph Chambers. Will he or won't he do what is right?