Brigham City

Rating:
Summary: When the real world comes knocking.......
Review: Brigham City is a real movie lovers movie. Mormon or not. I am NOT a Mormon. NOT that this really matters.
I still found it a stunning work.

This really is a VERY well crafted effort. I was engrossed from the opening scene.
Some people will think it is a merely "Mormon" movie designed to further a particular point of standing....Which it is not. The "Mormonisms" are merely a backdrop for a well written and enthralling storyline. The story could have just as easily taken place here in Oklahoma deep in the Homeland's Bible belt.

Richard Dutcher could well be one of our best undiscovered actors/directors. He seems totally real and quite comfortable in his own skin.

The main focus point of the film is one in which all people really fear...When the real world comes knocking at your own door...It is most often very unpleasant. Brigham's sheltered quiet lifestyle is shattered by the reality of a serial killer living amongest one of their own. The town learns that suspicion can be an ugly thing. It leads to distrust and changes in one's normal comfortable habitat. A killer could be living next door or EVEN within their own home.

The cast is excellent. Dutcher above all. Finding an actor who brings everyday people to life is slowing becoming a lost art. The camera work is stunning. Soft and peaceful much like the town itself.

There are no big special effects, thumping soundtrack or in your face dogmas. Brigham City is a very quiet work. It does not shout at you. However, it makes one look inward and outward at one's own world, faith and peace of mind.
In the end...It does leave a mark.
Some may find this very unnerving. Life has a way of being just that way.

Rating:
Summary: Mormon Noir
Review: "Brigham City" is a startling and original movie, and it marks writer/director/star Richard Dutcher as a talent to watch. It's a film-noirish murder mystery as imagined from the Mormon worldview. Dutcher plays the sheriff of a small Utah town who is also the local LDS bishop. The sheltered little place is confronted by the harsh realities of the outside world when a serial killer comes to town. The film is ultimately about what happens to faith in the face of the starkest human tragedy. It's been compared to "Fargo": comparisons to Peter Weir's "Witness" and the stories of Flannery O' Connor would also be appropriate. Some mechanics of the story are a little shaky, but the power of the performances, atmospheric authenticity, characterizations and themes more than make up for it. 2001 was a good year for film noir, with "Memento", "The Man Who Wasn't There", "In The Bedroom", and this movie. If you are a fan of independent film who looks for something more than the usual Hollywood product, you really should check out "Brigham City."

Rating:
Summary: Should've been titled MORMON City
Review: I stumbled upon this DVD at my local video store, mixed in with all the dramas. Little did I know what I was renting. This DVD spends more time preaching than it does telling a story. As far as I'm concerned, this should've been CLEARLY LABELED as a religious film so unsuspecting agnostics like myself don't waste their hard-earned money on it.

I guess the Mormons have found yet another way to invade my privacy and preach to me. Clever; I'll give them that!

But if they're trying to convert me, this wasn't the way to go about it. It just proved once again how judgemental devout Mormons truly are, and how naive to the real world they tend to be.

As for the movie itself, it was very disappointing; I had a buck-99 coupon on the rental and still feel ripped off. While the plotline is acceptable, the acting is very stilted and none of the characters really come across as believable. To me, the killer was pretty much telegraphed as one of three characters and the ending wasn't much of a surprise because he was one of my three suspects.

I suppose if you're one of the mindless sheep who believe anyone that shares your religious beliefs should be praised no matter how shoddy a job they do, then fine...rate this crapola five stars.

As a movie buff who doesn't give a hoot about religious messages in films, just how good the movie is, this one deserves one star only...and I'm being gracious there.

Rating:
Summary: Nearly perfect... Disturbing & Spiritually Moving Mystery.
Review: "Brigham City" is a tight, intense, and above all, thought provoking murder mystery.

Forget the wannabe critics like myself, this movie received high praise from many (if not most) of the nation's most revered movie critics. For example: "The perfomances are impeccable..." - NY Times / "...tense, well-spun murder mystery" - Mr. Showbiz / "...involving, nicely crafted whodunit" - Hollywood Reporter / "...a thoughtful film that deserves a wider audience" - Chicago Tribune / "A tight and surprisingly effective murder mystery." - TV Guide's Movie Guide.

Richard Dutcher successfully broke new ground with God's Army by all but inventing the "Mormon Film" genre. Regardless of whether or not you liked God's Army, it's surprise success established Dutcher as a formidable writer/director.

While short of being flawless, "Brigham City" continues Dutcher's success streak (allbeit short-lived) to 2 of 2, and more importantly, it raises the bar significantly. This is a better, more ambitious movie than "God's Army!"

I liked and enjoyed "God's Army," but "Brigham City" succeeded on so many more levels. It was truly creepy, intense and most importantly, complex. It dared ask some of life's darkest and most difficult questions. Questions like, Does evil prey upon innocence? and, Why does God allow suffering and tragedy to apparently devastate the lives of good people? Without providing clear answers, viewers are left to contemplate and discuss these questions long after the film is over.

Yes there are religious (Mormon) overtones to this movie. However, this time around, they are less of an infomercial for Mormonism, and more central to the movies more important themes of original innocence, innocence lost, and ultimately forgiveness.

In summary, a majority of the critics can't all be wrong. This is a great movie as well as an original movie. Where else will you see a murder mystery that is capable of spiritually moving you and disturbing you at the same time?

Rating:
Summary: Good mystery, good plot, one fatal flaw.
Review: This is a thrilling murder mystery and is to the Mormons what Witness would be to the Amish-- a good look at their society and how they would react if thrust into such a situation.

The solution to the mystery is shocking and unwinds too fast. Yes, critics will snipe at the Sheriff/Bishop for violating the constitutional rights against unreasonable search-- but devout Mormons in a town thrust into similar circumstances would tolerate it considering the motivation was a race against time to save the life of a young woman.

The fatal flaw is that if some young stud claiming to be a returned missionary and Eagle Scout showed up to work in another Mormon town, it is reasonable to expect the Sheriff may not run a check on fingerprints and references. What is not reasonable to assume is that the local ward clerk would not send for membership records once the newcomer decided to stay and the jig would quickly be up. Even in the unlikely event this happened, the fact that he was assuming the identity of a deceased man would arise once his marriage was recorded and again when his child was born. Mormons are too big on record keeping to let an imposter slip through three times.

Still, the film is a good mystery overall with a shocking ending if one can overlook this one piece of divergence from reality.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth be Told
Review: Too many Mormon viewers are too eager to be pleased by the new crop of B films to hit the LDS market.

I've have grown up in a home where both Mormonism and film were a way of life. I was excited by the prospect of the two overlapping with Dutcher's release of God's Army (his first dissapointment) and was again let down with Brigham City. I mean no offense to Dutcher or his team but he needs to research his characters. Not only is his Sherrif chacracter so inept that he oversteps the bounds of the inalienable rights listed at the VERY BEGINNING of the Constitution, he makes judgements concerning the murderer before he knows anything about the murderer. Oh wait. He knows that he's killed some people... Hmm...

Let's talk about story-telling. Usually in order to keep an audience's attention you must do something new... Other than the characters being over-trusting, stereotypical, small-town Mormons, there was nothing new done here. Except for the whole alienating non-Mormons thing... forgot about that one.

As a Mormon who is inherently a little critical I found this film to be so full of holes and lacking in just about every way that I was left feeling insulted. Is it wrong as an aspiring film-maker to expect the best from people who beat me and my talented friends out for funding? I'm not just an overly-sensitive LDS guy who found Dutcher's use of the Sacrament shocking. I thought his portrayal of LDS people as inherently blind lemmings was pretty degrading to the image of LDS people as a whole.

Too often we forget that film is an art. Sure it's been adulterated by Hollywood into a media marketing machine, but is it too much to ask for LDS directors to make films with tact? You don't need a lot of money to write a script; that's free.

If you must, waste your time, watch this movie and prove me wrong. I just know that too many people give LDS guys who can't cut it too much credit because their LDS too.

Rating:
Summary: A bit too dark for me.
Review: I really didn't like this movie. It was just too dark for me. But, if you like a good murder mystery, you may enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: I was pretty surprised...
Review: When my wife suggested we get 'Brigham City' on DVD I gave her one of my better puzzled looks, and for some reason, before I had a chance to suggest the newly released 'Back To The Future' parts 1, 2 & 3 -- I found myself saying, 'Yes'. WHY??? I'll never know, but I have found out since that I have been glad that I did.

Richard Dutcher. Who in the WORLD is Richard Dutcher? Other than writing, producing, acting AND directing this movie, I'd have to say he's a pretty smart fella. Is he in a league with some of the grossly overpaid directors working today? No -- not YET. As others have gone out of their way to state, 'Brigham City' is a Murder/Mystery set in a small Utah town that lives, eats and breathes as a very strong LDS Community (Mormon). Some reviewers, who are obviously anti-Mormon, and have a rather slanted version of ANYTHING done by ANYONE who happens to be a member of this religion have taken the low-road and blasted the movie's inclusion of the LDS faith, almost as an additional character in the story. But for those of us who live in small rural communities, and have an understanding of the LDS beliefs, you realize that a story such as this could NOT be even remotely accurate without the religious additions to the storyline.

With that said, 'Brigham City' is a facinating mystery tale told rather well. Aside from Wilford Brimley, I recognized absolutely NOBODY...and that turned out to be actually a nice plus to the film. A well-meaning Brigham City Sherrif stumbles upon a murder, and after first trying to brush it under the local floor mat to preserve the image that small towns simply do NOT have to deal with tragedies such as this, an additional horrific crime scene is discovered. Before long, the sherrif must come to terms with the frightening realization that a serial murderer is on the loose in this tight knit community. This forces the Sherrif into overdrive mode and he immediately takes action in ways that would cause almost all lawyers in North America to suffer heart attacks, but in small towns such as Brigham, the end result is not whether or not you violated someones rights in order to save a life, it's whether or not you saved a life -- PERIOD. Can't say as I blame them. I'm not too sure I'd be worried about having a search warrant if it meant ending the suffering of someone captured and held with the very real possibility of being murdered. All that aside, (we could debate it for a very long time, I would imagine) this story is genuinely surprising, especially in unmasking who the real culprit is. I admit I had him pegged fairly early on, but I waivered several times as the story unfolded, but that certainly didn't stop my overall enjoyment of seeing the plot unwind.

I am going to be recommending this to all my friends who are fans of murder/mysteries. And once again, for those of you who are stanch anti-Mormon, yes, it'd be a good idea to skip this, but if you can keep your short-sightedness in check for 2 hours, you just might end up learning something about the LDS Church, and enjoy yourself at the same time. Something that I must admit happened to my wife and I as we sat and watched this engrossing tale. In short, I'm glad I said YES when my wife suggested we get this DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Resident's Point of View
Review: As a mormon and a resident of Brigham City, I loved this movie. The acting was great, and there are a few shortcomings in the writing, but you would never notice them unless you were looking for faults. The movie is very accurate to the traditions of Brigham City and it's large mormon population. The suspenseful writing keeps you on the edge of your seat and the surprise twist at the end is great. Dutcher directing and acting in this film. This movie was the greatest thing that ever happenend to this small mormon town smack dab in the middle of no where.

Rating:
Summary: Depends on your reference point
Review: If you're one of those Mormons who feels that anything that positively mentions Mormons in a public arena is the greatest piece of work in existence, this movie is right up your alley and you should believe everything that the reviewers who rated this movie with five stars say.

If, however, you're one of those Anti-Mormons who feels that something that regards Mormons as anything better than Satan's minions is only adding to the great conspiracy threatening the world, you should believe those who rated this movie with 1 star, steer clear of it, and rent something else to watch. That is, unless you really do want to get all hot and bothered and foaming at the mouth.

But if you're one of the 290 million or so other North Americans who could really care less about the Mormon/Anti-Mormon wrestling match and are just looking for a good movie to watch this weekend, go ahead, give it a try, you could do worse.

There's a lot more to this movie than the fact that most of the main characters happen to be Mormons (which seems to be what everyone, including myself, is focussing on). First and foremost it is a murder mystery flick. It's certainly not a terrible movie, but it's not great either. And don't think they're trying for realism (i.e. so what if the cops don't have a warrant --that would only slow things down), just accept things as they come and you'll have a pretty good time.