A Bank Burns Down Creating Lots of Twists and Turns in this Thriller, But it’s All ‘For Hannah’ (Movie Review)
For Hannah
Rating: 9/10
Director and Writer: John Wesley Norton
Style: Crime Thriller
Time: 112 minutes
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlpweeAaGUc
Review by Mike Szymanski
I love movies with mixed genres. The best scary movies have big laughs in them. The best crime films include a great romance.
For some reason the handful of critics who remain (only slightly) critical of “For Hannah” are those who feel like there are too many genres in one film. Is it comedy? Is it a violent gang film? Is it a thriller? Is it an unlikely romance?
How about all of the above? It’s a heart-wrenching, heart-stopping, heart-full story that will keep you guessing until the end.
It is a period film that takes place in 1987 in a sleepy mountain town called Pine Ridge on Christmas Eve. The film starts off with a squirrel walking on the edge of a fence with snow all around. Soon after, the town’s bank is on fire.
These juxtapositions are the brilliance of John Wesley Norton’s script and direction in this surprising and satisfying indie film.
And every character has a great moment. For example, when the town’s used car salesman Frank (played by Rick Morgan) calls the sheriff’s office to find out about the bank fire, and insists on talking to someone of authority, it’s the actress and designer Katharine ‘Ladies K’ Mraz who answers the phone in her only scene in the movie, but is hysterical as she gives Frank some attitude.
She asks him to hold and then she works on a Rubik’s Cube before coming back on line to tell him that nobody is in, and suggests that he call the bank.
Then, there’s the cub local TV reporter who asks the sheriff if anyone has ever “arsoned a bank” in town before, and the sheriff himself is a checked-out officer who’s counting his days toward retirement.
Sheriff Cooper is played by Bruce Spielbauer, who carries off a droll seemingly stupid portrayal, but there’s some smarts in his lackluster enthusiasm about cracking the case, because he’s depending on the female Deputy Gale (played wonderfully by Suzette Brown), who he decided not to make acting sheriff after his retirement. He is testing her, and maybe testing his faulty decision.
Meanwhile, Frank is at home with his wife Emma (portrayed by a stunning actress Carla Abruzzo). She is serving Frank dinner and offers beans from her mother’s recipe to which Frank retorts, “It should have died with your mother.”
Enter a mysterious stranger, Chance, played by Shannon Brown, who takes the couple hostage because the car he stole broke down. Of course, the car was stolen from Frank’s used car lot, known for having a lot of lemons.
Chance asks for dinner and ends up loving Emma’s beans, and suddenly Emma seems to develop some Stockholm Syndrome about her captor.
Emma cries a lot, but she’s not crying because she has been taken captive by a bank robber. No, there’s something much deeper in her misery.
Frank makes some cheesy TV commercials shown on late-night TV where he offers “Frank’s Promise” and he does the same with Chance so he can split the bank earnings with him.
Chance steals the money because he has a niece who needs treatments and surgery and so he’s doing it all “For Hannah.” He doesn’t want to split the money, but he is boxed in.
Deputy Gale makes a few stops at Frank and Emma’s home and at one point thinks that maybe Emma is being abused by her husband.
Frank concludes that he is a “cold-hearted, self-absorbed angry man” and that Chance is very much the same way. It turns out not to be true.
A lot of twists and turns happen in this tight intertwined story, and it reaches a satisfying conclusion that often these small movies do not.
Sit back and enjoy this dark, yet comedic crime thriller, a bit like “Fargo,” except the town is even smaller.
The film has seen a multitude of awards throughout the world including for Best Costume Design in London, Best Indie feature and supporting actor and actress at the Cannes World Film Festival, Best Actress and Score in Milan, Best Actor in Florence, and much more. Expect it to win much more, too.
“For Hanna” was released March 14, 2022 and is available on Plex, UDU Digital and rlaxx TV.
