Hammer

Sins of the sons are visited upon the fathers in filmmaker Christian Sparkes' lower-middle-class crime noir, the taut plotline of which unspools in the course of one day. Living in a largely rural township near the US-Canadian border, Stephen Davis (Will Patton) and his careworn wife haven't seen their exiled ex-convict eldest son Chris (Mark O'Brien) for a year. Meanwhile, Chris has just crossed the US/Canada border nearby with profits from a lucrative drug deal, money he delivers to regional kingpin Adams (Ben Cotton). Straightaway, however, the criminals are waylaid in an attempted robbery, which a wounded and enraged Adams blames on Chris as an inside job (he is sort of correct). On the run, a desperate Chris reunites with his bewildered father, the duo trying to escape Adams' wrath, but by now the viewer well knows that these are not people with extraordinary problem-solving abilites. Deglamorized settings (filmed in the Salt St. Marie area) and performances edge away from the conventions of slick thrillers (or even the regional-flavor quirkiness of Fargo) for a short, effective, kitchen-sink portrayal of how a lumpen, working-class Canadian dad (no Mel Gibson heroics here) will go for his kids - or if you want to flip it around, how far kids go to make life stressful for parents.