Sure Fire

1993 Independent movie directed by Jon Jost


Rating: 13/20


Plot: A businessman has big plans to get folks to move from hectic California and Arizona big city lives to the calming comforts of Southern Utah. He talks a lot. Then his friends and family have extended monologues and dialogues. There's a hunting trip, and things happen. Bible verses flash across the screen. A child jumps on a trampoline, and there are trees.


The main problem with stylistic films like this one, especially low-budget stylistic films, is that if the audience is annoyed by the style, nothing in it will seem to work. And Sure Fire is almost jarringly stylistic. There are really really long dialogues and monologues (I think...other characters are present, but it seems as if the characters are thinking outloud) and sustained shots of the Utah landscape and of roads. The dialogue which drives the character development is shot strangely--a patient camera focuses on unflinching characters as they have extended, mostly one-sided conversations. It's weird, and along with the minimal guitar score and stark setting create a foreboding, haunting mood.


I enjoyed Tom Blair's intense performance as Wes, the entrepreneur at the center of the movie, and the director's ability to create such a powerful mood with subtle tricks, a camera, a sound guy, and snippets of detached dialogue that seemingly had little to do with anything. However, the plot seems to slip into a forced denouement that I had trouble buying and the storytelling made it difficult to make personal connection. It was an 83 minute movie that should have been like a haiku--every word and shot vital to the story. Instead, about half of the film was disposable, and although it's poetic and uncomfortable and moody and occasionally beautiful, it never really works completely.

Here I am watching Sure Fire in my bed: