The Frontier

The Frontier is an old fashioned thriller washed in the aesthetics of the Southwest and the Seventies. It feels old and timeless but also modern and crisp. The brisk pace and interesting characters makes the movie fly by. I highly recommend it.

The Plot.

Laine, a young woman on the run from the law, turns up at the Frontier, an isolated desert diner and motel.

She is offered a job by Luanne, the owner, and, hoping to lose herself in the obscurity of the place, accepts the job. But soon Laine realizes she has stumbled into an even bigger and more dangerous situation.

Firstly, i like the Twin Peaks look of the film. But it's very slow and the female lead is not a particularly good actress. She brings the movie down.

The dialog is second rate. It's hard to emulate Lynch because he's genuinely quirky and knows how to make it work. In fact, the more I watched this film, the more I felt it was just a Lynch rip off thank anything else.

Oren Shai's The Frontier is a slick Americana genre throwback, that truly makes me pine for the good ole days.

I was lucky enough to catch this film at SXSW, and it was glorious to watch on the big screen. Shot on gorgeous Super 16mm with wardrobe and production design that leap off the screen like a pulp novel come to life.

Laine arrives at The Frontier motel on the run from her problems, and she encounters a cast of characters with their own secrets to hide.

Jocelin Donahue is superb as Laine, the girl on the run who uses her wits to stay one step ahead of everyone. This is truly a demanding role that she excels in, as she's on-screen for virtually the entire film. If this were a pulp book, I'd gladly read the next 10-20 episodes of her story.

If I watched this in a drive in I'd have a hard time not thinking that I've gone back in time to 1974. So forget whatever tentpole blockbuster schlock that you're going to pay exorbitant prices to see at the local megaplex. Instead, let's turn the dial back and settle in to watch interesting people, behaving badly.

Oren Shai knows his archetypes, and plays brilliantly with them in this film-literate, paperback movie, artfully constructed with a wonderfully enigmatic central performance by Jocelin Donahue, playing a role similar to Nic Cage in RED ROCK WEST. The comparison is one that kept popping up in my mind. Both titles suggest Westerns but are in reality dusty, Southwestern Noirs, Both have the lead stumbling into a criminal scheme and then creating their own. Similar, also, is Shai's film to John Dahl's follow-up Noir, THE LAST SEDUCTION, in which we follow the femme fatale, instead of the tragic male.

If made in the 90's, like the aforementioned pictures, I think this would be enjoying a wide-release right now. It clearly has the skill behind it. Shai is a beautiful stylist, creating the timeless palate of a decade never mentioned, but most likely the 70's, given the cars and wardrobe. However, the actors put their spin on movie stars of decades previous. There's Kelly Lynch doing her version of Gloria Swanson, Richard Harris doing his Errol Flynn, and Jim Beaver doing a Lee Marvin. Beaver stands out as the strongest.

As much as the film portrays a slice of Americana Pulp, there's something almost European about the execution. It bypasses the luridness of the genre, and instead focusing on the lead, Donahue; photographing her lovingly, magnetically, like a muse, with long contemplative zooms. She has never looked better. And although we never fully learn about her character, she brings her inherent likability to it. She can be the Margot Kidder of our generation.

Although it starts rather seriously, there is a streak of black humor laced throughout that begins to escalate, climaxing with a delirious shift by Kelly Lynch. I suggest watching with an audience to bring out the potential camp.

Oh, and it's shot on 16mm. What else do you want?

I just finished watching this, I gave it a 7 due to the great way they filmed this, you swear it's a film made and set in the 70's, the grainy look, the set, the music, everything even down to the 70's kinda storyline, cars and clothing, extremely well done, even at the end the music score sounds if it's from the 70's.

Nothing new as yeah everything has been sort of done, but the cast is solid, simple but effective story line, but a rare sort of film that fools you thinking its years old.

7 out of 10

And here is some text so IMDb will publish my short review.