Shotgun Stories

There are echoes of producer David Gordon Green's North Carolina films in the Arkansas-set Shotgun Stories, about a family feud involving three brothers. Abandoned by their father in childhood, they don't even have proper names, they're called, in descending order of age, Son, Boy and Kid. The story has a tinge of Southern Gothic, but it's more than balanced by director Jeff Nichols' eye for the flat, empty landscapes, his filming of which recalls Terrence Malick (Green's mentor). Above all, though, he is highly skilled with actors, and Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon and Barlow Jacobs are superb as the three brothers, creating indelible characters out of what at first sight seem half-comic losers. Newcomer Ligon in particular is unforgettable as the overweight Boy, who lives in his car and the peak of whose ambition seems to be to make a domestic air-conditioner run off his dashboard cigarette lighter.