“Buck Run” holds its cards very closely to its vest – probably too close.
This is a deeply observational film that’s less concerned with story than mood and moments. It’s about an awkward teenage boy who’s forced to move in with his estranged dad after his mother passes away. She’d been ill for a long time and he was her primary caregiver, and even after she’s gone he carries on as the guardian of her dignity.
Nolan Lyons plays Shaw Templeton, a 15-year-old who’s slowly spiraling into some very bad places. He failed to call the authorities after his mother (Amy Hargreaves) died, and stayed home with the body a couple of days. That hasn’t helped his reputation at school, where he’s already being bullied and ostracized with homophobic insults.
His dad, William (James Le Gros), has barely been in his life, or even his own. Will has already spent many years in the place Shaw is heading: a virtual loner, self-pitying, making a lot of self-harming choices.
Will admits that he used to have a drinking problem that contributed to his marriage breaking up, though it’s pretty clear the way he loiters in redneck bars and stumbles into bed every night that the issue is not resigned to the past.
With an impressively grown-out beard, omnipresent hunter’s cap and sad eyes, Le Gros is the very embodiment of mourning – not so much for his wife, but the life Will had. It’s a textured, fairly subtle performance that bleeds beyond the limits of David Hauslein’s screenplay.
Will doesn’t seem to really have a purpose, or certainly a job. He drives around in a beater truck with a canvas cover over the bed, filled with junk he sells itinerantly at the flea market. His only real passion seems to be deer hunting. His ramshackle house sits on the edge of the woods, festooned with rifles, skulls and antlers.
As ostensibly the protagonist, Shaw is a harder read. Director Nick Frangione gives us lots of shots of him reacting to his environment, fear edging into loathing. The sequences where he’s dealing with a particular antagonist, a hulking teen played by Timothy Chivalette, are most effective, but fails to build to anything.
Similarly, Shaw’s friendship with a friendlier classmate and an encounter with his soulful father (Angus Macfadyen) seems like the beginning of something more that never arrives.
The same for Will’s seemingly only friend, John (Kevin J. O’Connor), which is filled with a lot of unexplored history. They both wear the (figurative and literal) clothes of he-men outdoorsmen, the very picture of iconic American male independence, but have plenty of hurt and vulnerability they’re only able to express in fits.
The primary conflict between Will and Shaw is over the disposition of their wife/mother, including her house and things but also her literal person. Will, perpetually strapped for cash, hesitates to pony up for a ceremony so her body sits at the funeral home in limbo. Shaw cases the place, insisting upon an urgent need he himself doesn't fully understand.
At 81 minutes, “Buck Run” left me wanting more. There are the bones of a good and interesting movie here. In contrast to the deer carcasses Will is perpetually carving, this film needed substantial fleshing out.