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10 Great Movies From 2014 That You Probably Missed In Theaters

This year, more than 600 movies received a theatrical release (I probably saw at least 120 titles, and I can definitely recommend more than half of those). So, even if you went to see a new movie every day, you still likely missed some gems. With many quality features slotted for the end of the year, with the hopes of drawing some awards love, it becomes even harder to catch up with perennial critics’ choices and looming cult favorites.
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Blue Ruin

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As micro-budget thrillers go, few made as big a splash this year as Jeremy Saulnier’s bloody and darkly funny Blue Ruin. If the sinister plots and surprising humor of Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men disarmed you, then Saulnier’s taut, tense thriller about a family feud should be a must-watch.

The drama follows homeless drifter Dwight (Macon Blair), one of the palest and least menacing-looking vigilantes in recent cinematic memory. It is his normality and his naivety that makes him somewhat lovable, as he moves forward to get justice on Will Cleland, the man convicted of murdering his parents years earlier who is now released from prison. From there, Dwight makes an effort to take some vigilante justice; however, after an attempt turns awry, he becomes the target of the Cleland family.

Much of the film’s humor comes from Dwight’s last-minute attempts to commit a crime, which involves a lot of errors and shoddy mistakes. He slowly becomes more competent as the feud gets bloodier, meaning Saulnier’s drama moves from amusingly deranged to dark. Blair never overshoots his arc as he moves from a victim to a violator, and his patches of nervousness creates an even more jittery suspense.

While Blair is excellent, the main breakthrough here is Saulnier, already becoming one of the more exciting voices in independent cinema. He likes to subvert the tropes of this subgenre, focusing on a haggard man who doesn’t seem to have a tough bone in his body. Beyond that, he has a terrific eye, focusing on spare landscapes as well as claustrophobic interiors that bring us into the psyche of the tightly coiled protagonist. Retribution has rarely seemed so riveting in contemporary American cinema.


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Author
Image of Jordan Adler
Jordan Adler
Jordan Adler is a film buff who consumes so much popcorn, he expects that a coroner's report will one day confirm that butter runs through his veins. A recent graduate of Carleton's School of Journalism, where he also majored in film studies, Jordan's writing has been featured in Tribute Magazine, the Canadian Jewish News, Marketing Magazine, Toronto Film Scene, ANDPOP and SamaritanMag.com. He is also working on a feature-length screenplay.