John Swab directs One Day as a Lion, starring Scott Caan and Marianne Rendon. With Frank Grillo and J.K. Simmons.
An American thriller, but with a mild, almost family-friendly aspect to it.
Movie Review
From other films by this director (he’s very nice, we interviewed him a few months ago), we expected something much rougher after Little Dixie. Nothing like that, because One Day as a Lion gives us almost the same, but with a much softer tone, as if precisely the title was a kind of parody of what actually happens, which matters little.
A plot that is consciously lost in the setting. Swab wants, as in many of his other films, more to portray the atmosphere of Central America than to tell us a story that lasts. It entertains, it doesn’t overwhelm, it knows how to keep a leisurely pace and say what it wants: let’s not look for the story behind these almost puppet characters, it’s more the background, the characterization and the landscape that make up the story of this film.
Swab surprises us with its more candid side, more human perhaps, telling the “usual” story of criminals, but with a narrative that is closer to television in structure and plot, abandoning (we do not know if only for this film) the violent tone.
We liked it, especially for the personality he knows how to infuse in each of his works and, step by step, building himself a career as a creator: not for everyone, very personal and deeply American.
It looks very good, supported by an almost invisible script and another of those (almost) invisible directions that make this almost invisible film, not so invisible in the end.