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The Quarry
The Quarry

The Quarry,

written and directed by Scott Teems

(R, 1 hour, 38 minutes)

The Rev. David Martín (Bruno Bichir) sees the man (Shea Whigham) face down in the dirt by the side of the road. "God is funny to bring you to me," he says. He helps the man but goes too far.

The man snaps and bashes Martín's head in with a wine bottle. He disposes of the body in a nearby quarry. He takes the reverend's van and drives to the Texas border town where the preacher has a new job waiting, as pastor of the town's only church. He calls himself David Martin.

We don't know the fake David Martin's real name; the lawman who becomes suspicious of him (Michael Shannon) is known as Chief Moore. The one-church town is called Bevel.

The new David moves into the boarding house that has traditionally housed preachers that come and go in Bevel. Landlord Celia (Catalina Sandino Moreno) says more than once that he's not like the others she's known.

The congregants love the new preacher's sermons, which speak of sin and forgiveness, even if most of them are recent immigrants who don't follow his English all that well.

If only David had done a better job of hiding the body, everyone might have been happy with him taking over the church.

The Quarry gives Whigham and Shannon an opportunity to do some fine work. But the script might be too freighted with symbolism. It's like the early Elton John album Tumbleweed Connection: too vague at times, hinting at a profundity that the script doesn't support.

Still, this drama is a deliberate and human-scaled affair, the sort of movie that probably would have gotten lost in the normal course of things, if the studios hadn't pulled back all their big-budget releases until the covid-19 business blows over. Like almost every movie ever made, The Quarry is more a work of craft than art, but it is satisfying in the way well-made, modest things can be. It's worth your attention.

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