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The Review - AT THE MOVIES
 

Fairuza Balk in Don’t Come Knocking
Wim and vigour with Tim

DON'T COME KNOCKING - Directed by Wim Wenders
Certificate 15

SAM Shepard stars in this lost-your-way semi-comic, semi-tragic film directed by Wim Wenders.

The pair have got good pedigree together: Shepard was in Wender’s Paris, Texas in the early 1980s.
Wender’s filmography includes such gems as the seminal piece on Cuban music, the Buena Vista Social Club, which he made with blues guitar legend Ry Cooder.
Add to this mix Tim Roth, and the basics of the film are right. His face was made for a film like this. He grimaces in to the winds that sweep across the forgotten towns of the mid-west. He added English grit to both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and always brings an intensity to his roles.
Shepard, who co-wrote the film with Wenders, plays a fading star of cowboy movies who has lost his way. Here we have a Marlborough Man facing a mid-life crisis.
After throwing his 10-gallon hat onto the hat stand and letting the swing doors of the saloon slam shut behind him, he goes in search of his family. They are a scattered bunch, including a mother (Eva Marie Saint) he hasn’t seen for 30 years. Such a span of time means there is a fair amount of catching up to do – something that seems to frighten Howard. As soon as she has the kettle on, he slips off again, to find the son he never knew he had, who his mother informs him exists.
And for Howard, the visit home also brings an emptiness. It is the realisation that so much has happened in the intervening years. Shepard’s haunting ‘the 1970s were only yesterday’ look is well delivered and poignant.
The mother of the child was from Montana, so Howard heads that way for more moping about the times-gone-by, lost opportunities, the whisky bottles he has finished and young ladies he has taken advantage of.
And when the couple – and their offspring – finally meet, Howard realises that even this has not left him as fulfilled he hoped such a reunion would leave him with.
The dialogue and characterisation fail to inspire, but the photography mimics the emptiness of the main characters soul.
Tim Roth’s studio executive character gives an interesting counter the misery of Howard – and is a refreshing break from his regular devil-may-care roles.
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