Hollow in the Land (2017)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
While the notorious Keith Miller remains locked behind bars for murder, his family is paying the price of a tainted name. High in these mountains, bad blood runs deep. A year after Keith's crime, a body is found in a nearby trailer park. Keith's son, Brandon, goes missing and becomes suspect number one. His headstrong sister Alison decides to take things into her own hands and track down her brother to clear his name before the cops get to him. Can she prove her brother's innocence when all the evidence suggests otherwise? The harder she looks, the more people turn up dead. And soon Alison becomes a suspect herself. In a town tucked away between a mountain range, secrets get buried deep. And if she's not careful, she'll get buried with them... - Actors:
- Dianna Agron, Rachelle Lefevre, Michael Rogers, Brent Stait, Jared Abrahamson, Jessica McLeod, Sarah Dugdale, David Lennon, Gina Chiarelli, Marilyn Norry, Glynis Davies, Cody Chernenkov, Cameron Hilts, John Sampson, G. Michael Gray, Dave McKinnon, Nikayla Zeabin, Brooke Crowdis, Dawson Den Bieson, Jasper Taylor
- Directors:
- Scooter Corkle
- Genres:
- Drama, Thrillers
- Countries:
- Canada
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Reviews of Hollow in the Land
Critic review
Hollow in the Land review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso
Sometimes it’s a fine performance can save an otherwise passably mild mystery. This is very much the case of Hollow in the Land where Dianna Agron not only holds the picture together, she practically walks away with it. Credit must be given to such an actor who must endure a Midwest accent akin to Fargo levels of absurdity and still pull off her role with gusto.
Agron plays Allison, a local lesbian of her small town that has become a target of the populace. Struggling to make it with her brother Brandon, she must deal with the fact that their dad is currently in prison for committing murder. They’ve tried to live their lives but it’s made all the more difficult when a series of murders rip through their community. Brandon, in particular, becomes a prime suspect. It’s then up to Allison to peel back the case and clear her brother’s name before the town makes an unjust judgement.
The murder mystery angle walks a fine line between being a dreary tread through the familiar and a moody enough darkness to be engaging. Writer/director Scooter Corkle has a control over his picture that seems to almost tap that neo-noir sweet spot of a small town thriller. The mystery itself is not so much involving and this become apparent when a lot of the moody staging takes over to fill in the blanks. The misty, foggy setting give a great sense of cold and provides an engrossing atmosphere of trying to find one’s way through slander.
This does work to the benefit of Agron who plays a character that perfectly occupies this kinda setting, she speaks with a deep and bitter voice as someone who has led a hard life in a hard place to live. Watching her run around her town with a gun in hand and grit in her teeth just works so damn well that part of me wished the film would just switch gears entirely to turn her into an action hero.
Sure, that sounds ridiculous, but at least it would draw away from the monotony of what feels more like an extended episode of countless police procedurals in cold and depressing settings. Considering that Hollow in the Land is not directly based on any true crime or ripped from any headlines that I know of, it feels as though there’s an ample opportunity lost here for something more. Here you have Agron as a gun-toting lesbian sister seeking justice and she just seems to come off about as standard as any thriller out there. Props, I suppose, for normalizing that kind of character, but the whole experience just feels like ordering a tuna sandwich from a small-town greasy diner. It comes about as advertised and yet one can’t help but feel there should be a little something extra, even for something so simple.