NEW YORK MOVIE JOURNAL (Feb.-Mar. 2017)

[Chris Knipp]

Stray Bullets (Jack Fessenden 2016). Two 16-year-old boys out in the country cleaning a trailer so it can be sold are waylaid by three criminals on the lam from a job gone wrong, à la Reservoir Dogs. The storyline is familiar stuff; Tarantino didn't write the dialogue; and the ending isn't that great. But wait, there's just one thing: Jack Fessenden, who also plays Connor, one of the boys, and son of longtime indie filmmaker and actor Larry Fessenden, made this first feature when he was literally sixteen years old. And given that, it's more than okay, a very precocious effort. As has been noted, Jack's distinctive touch is "a sense of quietness." In other words he knows how to let the action breathe, and that's rare. There is one good jolt in it. He also has James Le Gros and his father as two of the crooks (Larry was also dp). Thanks to this family affair, the tech details are worthy of the big screen. A novel experience and one I did not regret for a minute. Let's hope Jack doesn't wait too long till he makes his next movie. This kid's going to make movies. Watched at City Cinemas Village East Cinema, Second Ave. (where in Dec. 2004 I saw and was dumbfounded by Shane Carruth's Primer), 14 Feb. 2017.