McConaugheMay Day 2: Judgement

Alright, alright, alright here we are with another McConaughey. This is a 30 minute short by a guy who directed a movie about an evil video game (added to my watchlist) and starring Clarence Williams III, one of those absolute king character actors that you’ve seen in a million films and likely never noticed. A small sampling of his illustrious career includes: Deep Cover, Half Baked, Tales from the Hood, The Love Bug (the original, not the Lindsay Lohan one), Life, and The Butler. He also had a minor but memorable role in Twin Peaks and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, thus cementing his character actor bonafides. And with that deep background of scene-stealing charisma, CWIII utterly dominates McConaughey in this otherwise pretty rote quasi-riff on Assault on Precinct 13 and Midnight Run.

The former plays a man pulled over for speeding through a small town in Texas and is arrested by McConaughey’s cop character on his suspicious resemblance to an escaped murderer. The tension of the short relies on Williams’ easy charm balancing between the racial politics of a man pulled over and placed in custody based on nothing versus McConaughey’s paranoid suspicion that the man in his custody might actually be a murderer on the loose. And while it is somewhat nice to see them onscreen together (they have decent chemistry), too much of the film is taken up by gesturing at racial disparity or low-hanging fruit like the county being called "Judgement." Even for a short film, there’s simply not enough here to justify the run time, especially when director/co-writer David Winkler can’t imagine a way to increase the intensity between the two men without bringing in an angry mob. The plot doesn’t really come together in a meaningful way, very "hm, makes you think" cinema for people that don't enjoy the activity. CWIII, though... talented guy. Lot of intensity and charm in a role that doesn’t offer enough to justify that effort.

I'm remembering that the hardest part of this challenge isn't watching 31 movies starring the same guy, it's watching one movie a day every day, starring the same guy, and having to make time in my life for it. The pie chart of my life is squeezing out other activities (currently stands at majority Work, Sleep, McConaughey, and Pine (in a sexy way)) and I can't see the two other big ones shrinking any time soon. So it goes. We love to see a mountain and climb it. Maybe those windmills were dragons the whole time and it was actually a really cool thing for Don Quixote to do. Makes you think.