The Grave

Two friends, King and Tyn, are serving a twenty-year prison sentence at an institution in North Carolina. One day, a fellow prisoner tells them how they can commit the ''crime of the century''. All they need to do is find the treasure hidden in a very rich man's grave. After working on and bribing a pill-popping and corrupt prison guard, they succeed in escaping one night, but during the escape Tyn is unfortunately shot in the chest. They manage to get to an old companion, Travis, who is on parole and now an undertaker. The two escapees ask him and his two confused friends Boo and Cletus for help with Tyn's gunshot wounds. King leaves Tyn in Travis' care and journeys to his ex-girlfriend Jordan, a woman with many hidden talents, as we are soon to find out. Travis and his mates learn, unfortunately, about the treasure and disappear into the night to search for it. But, uptight as they are with their unsavoury task, they let their nerves get the better of them and when Boo hears footsteps approaching, he simply clubs the person down. Unfortunately, it turns out to be their friend King. Panic breaks out when he doesn't display any signs of life, but Travis has the solution: Where's the last place you look for a dead body? Why, in a grave! Director Jonas Pate, who has co-written the script together with his brother Josh, invites the viewer on a pretty peculiar and varied journey. The film opens with clichéd prison scenes and an almost parodic hardboiled conversational tone, and the mate-on-the-run theme feels strangely familiar. But just before the awful feeling of tiresome recognition settles, The Grave becomes a bizarre but entertaining little drama ending with a violent and bloody crescendo containing several unbelievable surprises and ''closing scenes''. The Grave is a very aesthetically made low budget production. The atmospheric camerawork from the deserted American south creates, in combination with the soundtrack, a very suggestive foundation. This together with the sprawling plot and peculiar and unsympathetic characters, suggests that Pate has been partly inspired by Edgar Allen Poe and the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple. On top of which, the filmmakers have succeeded in attracting a number of renowned actors, such as John Diehl in a minor role as the sadistic warden Cole, and Anthony Michael Hall whose role as the tough Travis differs from his earlier youthful roles in, say, Breakfast Club. PL

Medverkande
Craig Sheffer, Gabrielle Anwar, Josh Charles: Producent
Peter Glatzer: Manus
Jonas Pate & Josh Pate: Foto
Frank Prinzi: Musik
Alex Wurman: Talat språk
English