Expected more

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I remember my first time listening to Nebraska, the second Bruce Springsteen record I discovered, (after Born to Run of course) laying in my bedroom, imagining each song play out in my mind. That's one of the most appealing aspects of all of Bruce's work, the imagery he projects in your mind. Listening to his music is like closing your eyes and watching a short film play out. One of the most vivid images from the album is the closing verse of the song Highway Patrol Man, from which Sean Penn's directorial debut, The Indian Runner, was inspired.''It was out at the crossroads, down round Willow bank Seen a Buick with Ohio plates behind the wheel was Frank Well I chased him through them county roads till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear.''Penn's film, which he also scripted, begins with the narrator of the Springsteen song, Joe Roberts (David Morse) preparing for the return of his wayward brother, Frank (Viggo Mortenson) from Vietnam. The cast of supporting characters make up the rest of Joe's family, his wife (Valeria Golino) and his Mother (Sandy Dennis) and Father (Charles Bronson). Frank returns for only the briefest of periods and is gone again. A restless soul he returns to the road to keep at bay what he perceives to be the boredom and absurdity of day to day life. Quite like the Jack Nicholson character in Five Easy Pieces, Frankie is never far away from trouble, never far away from walking out on someone important in his life. He eventually returns with a girl, Dorothy (a fantastic Patricia Arquete), who's pregnant with his child. Frankie decides to make a stab at the kind of life his settled brother has established. But his nature is what it is and chaos is rarely far away from the troubled and semi psychotic Frankie.I mentioned Five Easy Pieces before and one of the things that struck me about this film, visually speaking, was that although made in 1991 it looks as if it was made in the seventies, in which it's set. I don't just mean that the car's and clothes are of the seventies, which of course they are. But the film itself looks as it was filmed in the seventies, reminding very me much of something like Badlands or indeed Five Easy Pieces. This is a commendable feat from the films photographer and this aspect gives The Indian Runner and its story a grainy authenticity. The story starts off at a slow pace and in the first half hour I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. But Penn gradually pushes up a few gears to tell a painful yet engrossing story about the relationship between these two brothers and how that relationship is defined by their contrasting perspectives of life. Joe is the guy next door, a good man with a wife, a child and a steady job. When Joe is called to use his fire arm in the course of duty he knows he does the right thing but still suffers from the guilt of the action. Frankie is restless and cannot subscribe to Joes happy and settled life. He's a candle burning at both ends and no matter how much Joe tries to encourage otherwise, all Frankie can see is the pain and the negativity in the world. Add to that a venomous temper and Frankie becomes a difficult person to love.Penn accompanies Joe and Frankie with a solid set of fully rounded supporting characters containing just as much depth as the two leads. There's Charlton Heston as Mr. Roberts, Joe and Frankie's father, who plays the angry and somewhat spiteful role with expert subtlety. Patricia Arquette is wonderfully quirky in one of the most intriguing roles in the film, as Frankie's girlfriend, Dorothy. Valeria Golino plays Joe's wife Maria, and their relationship and love appears both genuine and authentic.The Indian Runner starts off slow but it soon enough pulls us in to an absorbing and not so much an expected straight forward story of this brotherly relationship and how our differing points of view can both define and destroy relationships we have in life. It's also a story of trying to help those who cannot and do not want to help themselves which is always a captivating one.

Whoever doesn't like this film might not understand the influence behind it. I saw this when it came out in 1991 and thought it was a slow, dull, lagging soap-opera. Back then I didn't know much about the art or the business of film. Most "general" movie watchers would not like this film for the same reasons.Then I watched an interview w/Sean Penn and he said his big influence was John Cassavetes, who had recently passed away. So I went back & watched some of Cassavetes' films again. His films were social dramas between friends, usually in New York, struggling with their own inner conflicts. After that, when I watch Sean Penn's first four films (as filmmaker) I can totally see Cassavetes all over his film. Especially Penn's third film "The Pledge." Never has his inspiration been so strong than in the way Nicholson struggled with his demons. But for people who don't understand this, it's just an average, insignificant movie to them.

Love him or hate him, Sean Penn demands respect. Acting accolades aside, Penn established himself as a director with immense potential with 1991's The Indian Runner. Channeling the works of John Cassavetes and Bob Rafelson, IR is a complex character study inspired by Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman." Set in the late 1960's / early 1970's, IR is an homage to American New Wave cinema, a movement that helped revolutionize Hollywood. Penn's nostalgia for what is arguably the greatest decade in American film-making history is undeniable and translates so convincingly on the screen, IR could easily be mistaken for a film made twenty years before it was. From IR's muted palette, it's washed out colors, to the painstaking detail of the production design, Penn managed to craft a near perfect American film.The story of two very different brothers, one calm the other rough, is heartbreaking and emotionally raw. David Morse and Viggo Mortenson who play the two brothers, turn in flawless performances that are tortured, haunting and impossible to look away from. Penn's writing is stark, realistic, subtle and poignant all at once, hinting at the possibility he would help re-establish a lost tradition of small, straight forward, but intellectual complex films. But despite IR being cut from the same cloth as Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces, it proved to be a box office flop, unlike FEP which was a hit in 1970. Perhaps Penn's debut came 20 years too late, long after American audiences had forgotten about the Vietnam War and right after they'd grown complacent with Reaganomics or Bush 1's New World Order. Or perhaps IR was made 17 years too early, where today's climate is as soured by a pointless war as it was back in 1970. Time warps aside, Sean Penn should be respected for writing and directing one of the better American films made in the last 38 years.

THE Indian RUNNER grossed the measly sum of 191,125 dollars at the American box office , a total so paltry that the Japanese company NHK stopped investing in movies . If they managed to lose a massive amount on their investment they only have themselves to blame . Think about it Sean Penn ( Probably best still known as a hellraiser and the ex husband of Madonna ) walks into the office saying he's written a screenplay based on a song by Bruce Springsteen and he needs money to put it into production " What's it about Mr Penn " " It's about a couple of brothers . one's a upstanding cop and the other is a Vietnam Vet " " And this Vietnam Vet suffers from post traumatic stress disorder ? " " Well kind of " " So he goes out and blows away bad guys and his brother tries to find out who this vigilante is and there's a really dramatic scene at the end where the cop realises his brother is a killer ? " " Ugh no . It's not really that kind of movie since the bad brother doesn't do much " " So who are you planning to cast ? " " Mainly unknowns , though Charles Bronson might be in it " " And he blows away scum ? " " No , it's not that kind of film " " Who else " " Dennis Hopper ? " " And he plays a loopy Vietnam Vet traumatised by his experiences ? " " No he plays a regular Joe bar tender . I even wrote four very short scenes specifically so Hopper could get a part . There's no scenes set in 'Nam , it's not like that film where I over acted opposite Michael Fox . Despite everyone smoking you'd never believe it was the late 1960s " " So what else happens Mr Penn ? " " Not much except you get to see a baby falling out of a front bottom at the end of the movie " " And is that it ? " " Yes "" Okay Mr Penn , here's a blank cheque take as much money as it costs to make . Hopefully we can make a tidy profit " It's difficult to imagine how anyone thought THE Indian RUNNER would have been a success . Everything about it is adequate at best but the lack of a strong high concept plot means it was doomed right from the start as a commercial venture and will probably be remembered only as the debut of Penn as a director