Small Town Murder Songs (Ed-Glass Donnelly, 2010): Canada

Reviewed by Tim Lopez. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011

Based in Ontario, Canada, Small Town Murder Songs is a crime drama that follows a local police officer through a murder case and into his past. With a brilliant soundtrack and remarkable imagery, director Ed-Glass Donnelly polishes an elementary narrative. The film moves at a slow pace, causing the 75 minute run time to feel longer than it should. However, Small Town Murder Songs is not without its moments and a good performance from Peter Stormare.

Walter (Peter Stormare) is a police officer in a small Ontario town whose otherwise boring job takes a turn when a young girl turns up raped and murdered. With the help of his partner and a detective from out of town, Walter begins slowly uncovering the murder. However, when the lead suspect turns out to be the boyfriend of Walter’s ex wife Rita (Jill Hennessy),  Walter’s violent past is brought into light. Washington (Ari Cohen), the lead detective on the case, tries to solve the murder as quickly as possible but finds that Walter’s history with Rita complicates things. When Walter finds some conclusive evidence that could ultimately end the case, he takes it upon himself to try and discover the truth.

Light on dialogue and heavy on imagery, Ed-Glass Donnelly presents this murder mystery in a unique way. The film is loaded with some remarkable establishing shots and intimate sequences set to the tune of beautiful gospel music. However, for all its underlying religious messages and interesting filmmaking, the narrative itself is fairly dull. There is no anticipation leading up to the inciting incident and rarely is any room left for suspense. At it’s core, Donnelly’s film is not so much a crime story as it is a development of Peter Stormare’s character Walter. Stormare does an excellent job portraying the somber police officer. The soft spoken Walter is a complex character with a past that is never fully revealed. In any character study it is important that the audience can relate to the character in some way. Flashbacks indicate that Walter’s past was a violent one, but the film does not dig deep enough, leaving the audience with too many questions.

Donnelly makes use of diving the film into different parts almost like a Quentin Tarantino film. However, instead of using catchy titles, he inserts Bible passages. The Bible passages are blasted across the screen similar to that of the rules laid out in Ruben Fleischer’s satirical apocalypse film, Zombieland. Stylishly directed but narratively dull, Small Town Murder Songs might not astonish but it is definitely worth a view.