All That Shimmers…
A local sheriff is investigating a robbery. Or is it a murder? And why is that character alive? Didn’t we just see him dead? Oh the chronology is jumbled. We smell a twist coming.
The cast is much as you would expect it: a simpleton, two FBI agents, a bitter family man, his wife, a local judge, and his lover. Mercifully, there are no “damn fine” cups of coffee served, and judging by the lack of hammy accents, the eponymous lake is not found in North Dakota.
So Shimmer Lake (direct-to-Netflix) is not insultingly cliché. Still, we would have considered our time in front of the TV better spent watching the largely superior mise en scene and intrigue of Unsolved Mysteries re-runs.
The acting, the bulk of which is performed by Rain Wilson (bitter family man) and Benjamin Walker (local sheriff), goes from unconvincing (the former) to uninspiring (the latter). It is all rather inoffensive, really, until the dialogue, no doubt emboldened by the fact that we are still watching twenty minutes in, attempts to get clever. The nadir of this effort comes when a girl of six calls a bumbling deputy sheriff by a rather rude two-word epithet implying not only that the man is overweight but also fornicates with mothers.
No matter what the sweating, blotchy masses tell you: there has never been, in the history of the moving picture, a truly funny instance of a young pre-pubescent child coaxed into using dirty language by some hack director.
And so, we beat on, waiting around for the twist as the story unfolds. Just when we are beginning to give up all hope, suddenly there it is! The Twist! Coming in hot at the very last minute!
Too bad it’s not one worth waiting around for.