BREAKWATER

(director/writer: James Rowe; cinematographer: Kai Krause; editor: Caroline Ross; music: Roque Banos; cast: Dermot Mulroney (Ray Childress), Darren Mann (Dovey), Alyssa Goss (Eve/Marina), JD Evermore (Luther-Dovey’s fisherman father), Daniel Williams-Lopez (Luis), Ezra Duvall (Eve’s young daughter), Mena Suvari (Kendra), Sonia Sohn (Bonnie Bell), Celia Rose Gooding (Jess); Runtime: 97; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Larry Hummel, Dana Lustig, Matt Paul, Edward Winters; Vertical; 2023)

“A farfetched thriller.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A farfetched thriller, that is too simple and too rote for the indie to be interesting. It’s written and directed by the North Carolina filmmaker James Rowe (“Blue Ridge Fall”), in his second film in 25 years.
 
The gullible, bland and dimwitted young inmate in a coastal Virginia prison, Dovey (Darren Mann), doing 3 years for drug possession, does a favor for the older lifer, his prison mentor and hardened inmate Ray Childress (Dermot Mulroney). The manipulative Ray asks Dovey when he’s released to cross the state border and go to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, which is a parole violation, to meet his estranged daughter and to tell him where she’s living. Dovey finds his Marina under the name of Eve (Alyssa Goss), who works in a bookstore and gives lighthouse tours, and phones Ray. Dovey and the sexy and profane Eve soon become lovebirds. She’s the single mom of a 5-year-old daughter (Ezra DuVall).

The naive Dovey doesn’t realize Ray doesn’t have a daughter until Ray busts out of prison, killing a guard, and comes looking for Marina seeking revenge.

It leads to an unfulfilling climax, as past secrets are revealed and Dovey’s parole officer (Sonia Sohn) pops up, and the Carolina bred Avett brothers pluck away at their country music.


It played at the Boston Film Festival.


REVIEWED ON 1/9/2024  GRADE: C