Whitewash

Whitewash plays out like a film conceived after a drunken screening of two completely disparate movies - Cast Away and Fargo. The musical score, seedy tone, and tundra-based setting take heavy cues from the classic Coen work. The elements of isolation and one-man-showmanship derived from Zemeckis' stranded island movie compose the rest of the movie. If these ingredients may seem to mesh well on paper, the reason for Whitewash's bitter taste lies in the execution of the conflicted material. Whitewash suffers from a plethora of ailments. The dialogue is piss-poor. The plot is needlessly complex, as well as implausible. On a psychological level, Whitewash shows more promise, but it is still immensely oversimplified. Any moment that generates anything close to genuine engagement are birthed purely from Thomas Haden Church immense laboring past strange, tinny dialogue and the scenery at hand, sometimes one losing out to the other, sad to say. The focus on the relationship between Bruce and Paul that is revealed through flashbacks is horrid and rings false and awkward throughout. The ending is so thematically oblique, almost nihilistically so, that I fail to see any thematic resonance once the conclusion comes about, if it may be considered a finale of any sort. A mixed-bag, to say the least. Church tries, but . . .