(Editor's note: I reviewed this picture at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. It has since gone through a US title change before getting distribution: It is now called in America, "Moment of Truth." 23 March 2010)
Tribeca Film Festival Review “Don McKay” reviewed 9 May 2009 by Ted Faraone Four stars out of Five; $10 ticket on a scale of $0 to $12 CURIOSITY CAN KILL MORE THAN CATS When Jake Goldberger, whose IMDB resume lists only one other feature film, a 2003 release on which he was a production assistant, set out to make “Don McKay,” a Tribeca Film Festival premiere starring Thomas Haden Church in the title role, he had in mind an homage to “Blood Simple.” His retrospective does not dominate the flick – there are only two genuinely bloody scenes, one in the second and one in the final reel, but both are funny and both work. In light of his limited resume Goldberger’s achievement remarkable. Don McKay is a high school janitor in From the outset, things don’t add up. Sonny appears to be both a tad too healthy and way too smoking hot for a woman with a month to live. She is also a tad too hot for Don. Don knows something that Sonny doesn’t: She is an impostor. Said fact is not revealed until the final reel (the second “Blood Simple” scene), when Don tells her that the real Sonny has been dead for 25 years and that he was responsible for her accidental death – which explains his pariah status. Other than Church, most of the thesps play dual roles – no principal character is who he or she seems to be at first. It’s a stretch for the actors, but they are all up to it. Kudos to Goldberger for skillfully interweaving more con-artist subplots than one would think can fit into a single feature. “Sonny” has enlisted a couple of crooks (Melissa Leo and Pruitt Taylor Vince) as well as her soon-to-be ex-husband (James Rebhorn at his sinister best) in a triple cross. The amount of money at stake is small, about $200,000, but in Sonny’s world it matters. Goldberger’s resolution is worth far more than the sum at stake. Goldberger largely overcomes the difficulty in setting up so many subplots at once – largely. There remains an unaccounted for corpse in a freezer when the closing credits role. But otherwise “Don McKay” hangs together better than a great many other current filmes noires. One nagging question remains: Why would a guy go visit a woman whom he knows is an impostor claiming to be his dead girlfriend? The answer lies in Church’s performance and in a line of dialogue which makes the implicit explicit -- provided that auds are willing to buy it. M. Emmet Walsh does a delicious turn as a goofy elderly cab driver who answers the question, “How long can one old guy last locked in the trunk of a 1969 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham?” It sounds ridiculous, but it is central to pic’s denouement. While it is clearly done on a budget, “Don McKay” has no technical glitches for which to apologize. Dialogue is both crisp and audible. Double entendres abound, particularly from Leo’s Marie. Editing by Andrew Dickler is workmanlike, and original music by Steven Bramson is a good fit. Phil Parmet’s lensing leaves little to be desired, and Andrew Poleszak’s costumes are spot-on. As of this writing, “Don McKay” has no distribution. It ought to have it. Shue, alone, is worth the ticket. Violent situations may deter some parents, but what violence there is, is stylized to the point of absurdity. --30--
