So much average

Simply Perfect

As Good As It Gets

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Wow. If it's not too late, try to go into this one completely blind - no trailers, synopses or reviews. I have never been so drawn in by the hero's tragic flaw than in this movie, and that flaw is casually dropped all over the web. The moment of realization was gut-wrenching. Watched this as part of an Eric Schweig binge and so far it may be his finest performance from the four or five films I've seen. (Graham Greene sort of goes without saying.)

Skins is director Chris Eyre's follow up to the 1997 Native American film Smoke Signals. Like the first film Skins is a comedy drama that has moments, and is a sound film, but could have done a bit more, and often settles into PC preachiness. One would have hoped Eyre would have matured as a filmmaker in the interim. The main character is Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig), a reservation cop on the Pine Ridge Reservation for Oglala Sioux in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He is dissatisfied with his job and life, and even more so with his older brother Mogie (Graham Greene), a stereotypical lazy and drunken Indian, who is a source of embarrassment for Rudy. He is also a Vietnam veteran, haunted by that war, and unable to take care of his teenaged son Herby (Noah Watts). After some violence directed against the tribe Rudy snaps and becomes a vigilante, first brutalizing two teenagers responsible for an attack on another boy, and then setting ablaze a local liquor store he blames for the Rez's woes. Unfortunately, Mogie happens to be sleeping off a drinking binge after breaking into the store, and is severely scarred by the fire, which guts into Rudy. While at the hospital for his fire recovery it's discovered that Mogie has a terminal liver disease. Rudy, in his guilt, decides to live out a foolish act of vandalism, once Mogie dies, as a penance.Overall, the film is solid, but there are times when the lighting and set up of scenes feels very amateurish. The story is rather banal, and dull, but Schweig and Greene, as the brothers, almost make up for that, and Greene is that rare actor who can both play a stereotype and subvert it. Schweig, as Rudy, is also very good, although no credible reason for his mental break is given. The scenes of the men's youth is a place where more could have been fleshed out, and a focus on the brothers, and Mogie and his son, would have been far more effective than Rudy's break. There is also a wasted romance between Rudy and Stella, played by the beautiful Michelle Thrush- an actress who can say more in a silent glance than many can in a two minute monologue. Yet, despite these positives, the film is a bit of a dud. Hopefully, in whatever his third project is, Chris Eyre can put all the wonderful little parts, moments, and performances into a tour de force.

"Skins" is an unabashed low budget indie which tells a meager story about life on South Dakota's impoverished Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The film centers on an Indian cop/vigilante (Schweig) and his alcoholic Vietnam vet brother (Greene) and manages good character development, a semblance of story, humor, drama, and an obvious proactive Native American agenda. This austere production will be an average watch for most filmgoers while those with specific interest in Native American issues will find depth, substance, and resonance. (C+)Note - Those interested in "Skins" might want to give "Thunderheart 1992" (also with Graham Greene) a look.

A story of survival from America's poorest county and a native American production that's not set in the late 1800's but today. This alone is jarring for the seasoned and discerning cinematic eye. About a Sioux Indian man on the reservation with seemingly few options, who desperately tries to do the right thing for his brother and his community but who's actions send him deeper into despair. To redeem himself includes a symbolic final scene unlike any I have ever seen in film. Film entirely on the Sioux reservation in South Dakota. I can hear John Wayne rolling over in his grave...several times.