Filmmaker Chris Eyre, who directed the independent success story Smoke Signals -- one of the first motion pictures directed by, written by, and starring Native American talent -- offers another look at contemporary Native American culture in this hard-hitting drama. Rudy (Eric Schweig) and Mogie (Graham Greene) are two brothers living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Located in the poorest county in the United States, joblessness and alcoholism are all-too-common facts of
life in Pine Ridge, and Rudy and Mogie represent opposite ends of the scale of fortune. Mogie, a Vietnam veteran who came home emotionally scarred by the war, has a severe drinking problem and can't relate to his teenage son Herbie (Noah Watts), while Mogie's younger brother Rudy has struggled to better himself, and as a law enforcement officer is a respected member of the Pine Ridge community. But while Rudy is determined to do something positive for his town, he feels there's only so much he can do as a lawman, and in his off-hours he's become a vigilante, roughing up people whom he believes are helping to bring down Pine Ridge, and plotting to blow up a nearby liquor store that profits from the widespread alcoholism that has destroyed the lives of so many of his people, including his brother. Skins received its world premier at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Skins is a wrenching, uncompromisingly bleak film, but its stars ... fill the screen with warmth, humor and spiritual yearning in the face of hardship and tragedy.
Although mainstream American movies tend to exploit the familiar, every once in a while a film arrives from the margin that gives viewers a chance to learn, to grow, to travel.
Like Smoke Signals, the film is also imbued with strong themes of familial ties and spirituality that are powerful and moving without stooping to base melodrama
Though the aboriginal aspect lends the ending an extraordinary poignancy, and the story itself could be played out in any working class community in the nation.
There's a certain raggedness and preachiness to the picture, but ultimately its simplicity and basic integrity shine through and compensate for the flaws.
This is one the wife picked and I had no idea what we were getting into. Ultimately, the film is a brutal look at the realities of life, or what passes for life, on a Lakota reservation. As always, Graham Greene is excellent!
May 25, 2007
Moe E
Super Reviewer
Great movie kinda goes all dert. well worth watching! Chris Eyre is great! Someday he's going to be one of the most fam. direct. of are times! My wife has talked to him about makeing one of her books into a movie, she just has to turn in into a screen play and send him a copy and he'll look it over to see if he would
like it.
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