Don McKay Comments

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  Miv Evans

  Mar 26, 2010

  DON MCKAY is billed as Jake Goldberger�s debut mystery thriller and is described by the filmmaker himself as a �film noir�, inspired by the Coen Brothers� intricate yarn, Blood Simple. But although this film promises big it offers not one moment of thriller tension and despite the mystery of plot and character being finally resolved with the high drama of a game of Cluedo, it�s a matter of too much too late and the audience is left feeling cheated that the filmmaker let the characters take their journey alone. We first meet Don working as a high school janitor, mopping floors and cleaning paintwork. He receives a letter, spends a split second in thought, and the next time we see him he is travelling back to his home town. So what do we learn about Don McKay in this all important setting up of his character? We know that he works as a high school janitor, which entails mopping floors and cleaning paintwork, that he receives a letter, that he is now returning to his home town. Unfortunately, what we don�t know is whether he likes/hates being a janitor, or how he feels about returning to his home town and there are no clues from a poker-faced Don then or for the rest of the film. We are given the same meager insight into the rest of the characters who never let us go beyond the surface and whose motivations remain just as ambiguous. Equally mysterious is the brief mention of a tragedy in Don�s youth which is skipped over and, despite holding great relevance to the story, is never explained. From all these omissions I can only assume the writer�s idea of a mystery is to not let the audience in on the secret � whoever would have thought that that could have worked? The reason Don returns home, we discover, is to visit his ex-girlfriend, Sonny, who is apparently terminally sick. It is soon obvious to the audience that this woman is as hale and healthy as can be and although this does present a mystery it also makes us wonder how dumb Don is not to be even an iota suspicious or to at least ask what she�s actually dying of. We also have, of course, the protective bulldog nurse who turns out to have her own agenda, but the only real mystery here is why she is covered in tattoos. There are a number of attempts to add thriller elements, like Don getting kidnapped from a taxi and, yes, you guessed it, the threatening �get out of town or you�re dead�, phone call, but just adding bits here and there doesn�t create tension and simply makes the actors look silly (i.e. welcome to melodrama). However, the biggest problem with this film is that every intriguing idea and character nuance, and there are a lot of them, are kept until the end, and I mean the very, very end. At about the 80th minute, suddenly plots within plots and mysteries within mysteries abound but are revealed through dialogue alone which is totally unsatisfying and the audience is left wondering how exciting this film would have been if all this had been woven into the story. With the rug now suddenly whipped away, Don is finally unmasked and reveals a character twist powerful enough to give this film all the edge it needs, but coming at the 86th minute in an 87 minute film is a little late to draw us in and the entire idea, although absolutely brilliant, is wasted. Yet another important revelation is given air in the finale when a police officer asks Don why he has acted like he has, and Don gives the simple answer; �I was lonely�. When an explanation is spelled out that blatantly it usually means the writer has a sneaking feeling he hasn�t done his job, so to make sure he�s using the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-walnut technique which is neither thrilling nor mysterious and, if this is true �film noir�, then I�m Miss Scarlet and I�ve just murdered Colonel Mustard in the library with a very sharp candlestick.

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