Silver City

(Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment, 1.11.2005)

John Sayles is better approached as a writer who happens to make films than a filmmaker who's also a writer. The chief pleasure of much of his previous work lies in watching terrific actors tear into impeccably crafted monologues. Lately, however, Sayles has been given over to lefty speechifying, using a parade of indistinguishable characters for quasi-socialist-mouthpiece rants. Silver City is probably his most transparent work in this vein, a sort-of murder mystery set during a Colorado gubernatorial race that's admirable for its intentions, not the end result.

There are pleasures to be had with Silver City but, distressingly, they're few and far between: Billy Zane oozing oily menace as a tobacco lobbyist, Richard Dreyfuss waltzing serenely away with the film proper as a Machiavellian Karl Rove-esque strategist, and Chris Cooper doing an absolute scream of a Dubyah impression as hapless candidate Dickie Pillager. But Sayles' overtly literal, sloppily plotted, and often completely incomprehensible script, reaches for more than it can achieve.

It remains interesting, then, that Sayles' DVD commentary tracks tend to focus more on technical aspects, as opposed to his thematic intentions, and Silver City's (recorded with his co-producer/companion Maggie Renzi -- on Election Day 2004, no less) is no exception. One would think that after 25 years of DIY filmmaking he'd be able to shoot a simple dialogue scene with clarity but basic composition continues to elude him. This is especially distressing considering he's working with legendary DP Haskell Wexler (for the fourth time!). Sayles is adept at explaining his methods and processes but he reveals the flipside of having complete creative control when he remarks that, in essence, he spat out a draft of the script late in the summer of 2003 and waited until after it had been shot to shape the material. Of all the scripts he's written, this one needed a lot more work before going in front of the cameras.

The track does offer an admirably consistent and informative stream of information, with Sayles and Renzi pointing out how the nooks and crannies of Masonic halls and mining museums gave them the opportunity to shoot handfuls of scenes within the same location. The production was shot for $5.5 million on Super 16, the low budget requiring much of the film's star-studded cast to fly in, shoot their scenes, and take off again within a few days. Sayles and Renzi stumble, though, by trying to validate the miscasting of Danny Huston in the lead gumshoe role via a familial connection to noir gems like Chinatown and The Big Sleep. Huston is an ingratiating enough presence but he's all wrong for the part, all toothy smiles and no sense of inner demons.

A refreshingly non-fluffy making-of featurette fills out the package, as well as a collection of trailers. The film is indeed worth a look for the performances and the occasionally snappy banter but, compared to Sayles' other work, it's a real disappointment. -- Jason Comerford