Eye of God

I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, I understood completely the feeling of the place, the time, the people. So many people think that life is simple in a small town, but it is not...all the dark secrets are there, all the illness that everyone attributes to living in large cities is also there.

I couldn't take my eyes off the screen while I was watching this movie. Sometimes a film does come along that is everything a film is supposed to be.

If you haven't yet seen this film, please make an effort to watch it, it will be well worth your time.

Jack is released from prison and meets up with Ainsley, a young woman he has been writing letters to for quite some time. Ainsley is a sweet romantic simpleton who doesn't even want to know about the crime that put him in prison. Jack believes that he has been reformed by the justice system and by religion, but he's also a control freak. For strange reasons lost in the mysteries of the human heart, these poor souls decide to start a relationship.

One can't give away too much of the plot without collapsing the nonlineary framework of the film and ruining its breathtaking effect. So suffice it to say that this recipe for disaster is tossed up in the air along with the biblical story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and with all the theological and ethical problems both of these stories present. Everything builds to a whirling climax of nonlinear convergence and small-scale horror. In the end the audience is brought face-to-face with that grand philosophical theme "the problem of evil," and we find no easy solutions.

I thought it was quite good. It gave me a feeling I haven't felt since I saw Sleepers. I loved the way the director overlapped scenes, and used flashbacks to tell the story. This is success where Pulp Fiction failed. All the characters were believable, and all the performances were good. In particular, I was impressed with the depth of emotion Nick Stahl portrayed without saying a word for the whole first half of the movie. Sometimes the ending you don't want makes the movie that much better.

I have watched this film approximately five times, and the depth of the acting and brilliant presentation of the plot continue to impress me.

A small-town girl, played by Martha Plimpton, marries an ex-convict (who has to wear an ankle detector as a condition of his parole) immediately after he is released from prison. What evolves during the course of this movie forces viewers to consider faith versus the harsh reality of dealing who some people truly are at heart.

This is one of very few movies that I can actually say changed my life. There has never been any other film or work of art that has had such an emotional effect on me. Martha Plimpton and Nick Stahl are extraordinary; never have I cared so much for two fictional characters. And writer/director Tim Blake Nelson could not have possibly done better for his film debut. This is a movie you will never forget.