classicsoncall Review of Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

"I hear people talk about regret, but I haven't got any."

[7/10 · 17 August 2018]

I can't even imagine what the title of this movie is supposed to represent. It sounds cool and all, and I thought perhaps that one or more of the characters might have been named Bodie, as opposed to a reference to 'bodies', but that wasn't the case either. What you have here is a meandering story of an outlaw (Casey Affleck) who's jailed following a robbery and shootout against the local authorities of Meridian, Texas. He takes the rap for his pregnant girlfriend (Rooney Mara) non-fatally shooting a deputy, spending the next four years in prison, but always with the intention of returning to her and the daughter he's never seen. It's a fairly good premise for a story, but there never seems to be the kind of dramatic tension one would expect in a film like this. With Bob Muldoon's (Affleck) escape from prison, a trio of ostensible bounty hunters wind up in pursuit, though it's unclear where their affiliation lies. They're all dispatched rather handily in separate confrontations with Bob and deputy Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster), and so ends that threat, except for the fact that Muldoon himself is fatally wounded and near death when he's eventually reunited with his girl Ruth (Mara). I suspect the viewer is supposed to contemplate the dynamic introduced between deputy Wheeler and Ruth Guthrie as potentially embracing a relationship, while the presence of Keith Carradine's character Skerritt introduces an unknown question mark into the story, as we never really know what compels him to be so protective of Ruth and her child. It's all a bit of a puzzlement, not entirely bad mind you, but enough to make you quickly forget a film that's not as memorable as it's title.