Given its constraints, Hammer does what it’s supposed to do. A gritty film noir about petty crooks on the US/Canadian border, it builds a persuasive sense of desperation despite minimal sets and an obviously tight budget. Speeding by at a little over an hour, Hammer makes its points without belaboring them.
Writer and director Christian Sparkes centers his story around Chris Davis (Mark O’Brien, also a writer and director), first seen botching a drug deal in woods near the border. On the run from his erstwhile partner Adams (Ben Cotton), Chris dumps his wounded girlfriend Lori (Dayle McLeod) in a cornfield.
Chris is back in the home town he left after a previous drug deal. He’s forced to turn to his family for help. His mother Karen (Vickie Papavs) is nursing resentments about placing her father in a home, his father Stephen (Will Patton) is preoccupied by debts, and his brother Jeremy (Connor Price) looks like he’s heading down the same road to crime and drug addiction.
Sparkes is astute about how drugs infect a small town, even the sunny, wholesome one where the Davises live. He sketches in their circumscribed world effectively: suburban homes, slum apartments, pawn shops, gas station convenience stores surrounded by miles of farmland and wilderness. Chris doesn’t have many options as his pursuers close in.
Darting nervously, constantly looking back, drawn in until he has to explode, Will Patton is the best thing about Hammer. He finds ways to make his underwritten and at times far-fetched character believable, whether it’s the tilt of his head as he reacts to another gut-wrenching revelation about his son, or the way his demeanor stiffens when he senses danger. A veteran performer, Patton elevates every scene in which he appears.
The supporting roles are well cast, in particular Papavs as a mother perhaps deliberately oblivious to what is happening to her sons. O’Brien may be the weak link here. His part wants him to play shiftless and untrustworthy, but his performance leans too heavily on the unappealing aspects of his character.
Hammer unfolds in the course of a bright, summery day, in quiet rooms and wind-rustled fields, only occasionally straying into real danger. It’s an honest approach that relies on realistic situations instead of hyped-up action. The script tackles some perplexing societal problems, like the allure of drugs when no other opportunities are available. The movie doesn’t try to solve them, falling back instead on genre conventions. But with a very small budget, Hammer at least acknowledges how poverty and neglect lead to chaos.
Hammer opened on digital/VOD June 5.
