Bad Day At Black Rock (1955)

Location: Home (DVD)
Seen Before: No
Rating: 3.0

Bad Day At Black Rock isn't a bad or poor film by any means, but one that misses the mark on too many occassions. The biggest problem--one so large that makes the film difficult to get through--is the almost complete lack of close-ups, or even medium close-ups! This makes getting to know, understand, and feel the characters extremely taxing and, in fact, keeps even the plot at a distance. Perhaps this was create an of suspense or mystery, but that is already inherent of the story. I feel like maybe this approach was an experiment that backfired.

Despite the good performances, fascinating but ultimately lacking story, and otherwise wonderful cinematography, this was unfortunately misses the boat.