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Don't Come Knocking
 
In reverse of traditional westerns, where the hero rides into town, Don’t Come Knocking begins with the protagonist riding out of one, in the instance, a movie location set. Here lies a man whose personal and public identity has long been synonymous with his screen counterpart. Played by Sam Shepard (who also penned the screenplay) Howard Spence is a faded actor of westerns. He is a loner, never settles down, lives by his own set of codes, and indulges in booze, sex and drugs with wanton abandonment, until he is all washed up. Howard begins a journey of self-discovery, literally and figuratively, upon finding out from his Nevada-resided mother (Eva Marie Saint) about a son he never knew from one of his apparent one-night flings in Butte, Montana. The journey is not to affect change from his wicked ways, but a curiosity of what might have been had he stuck around.
 
Elsewhere, a young woman named Sky who wants to become a TV extra (Sarah Pulley) receives an urn containing her deceased mother. She too goes on a journey. To find the father she never knew, except in the movies. Back at the movie set, a mysterious suit going by the name Sutter (Tim Roth) is engaged by the movie producers to find Howard and bring him back to fulfil his contractual obligations. Although Sky and Sutter represent the western genre archetypes, damsel and marshal/bounty hunter respectively, their roles are minimized almost to the point of aimless drifting. They are the only characters to pass through the film’s entire drama unscathed.
 
Shepard gives many layers to an otherwise one-dimensional, washed-up screen cowboy. Howard’s baggage assortment of professional, behavioural and emotional, guilt, yearning (of what was before) and inclination to take flight when situations prove difficult, in all its facets is clearly shown on his face and body language. Lange’s wonderfully restrained performance rears full-force when she explodes in impeccable timing towards Howard’s proposition to settle down with her (which she knows very well will result in him being absent again). Despite playing essentially the same character in Broken Flowers, her performance is not only solid but also not eccentric at all.
 
Wim Wenders’ western-motif laden Don’t Come Knocking takes the ‘lone cowboy hero’ from the mythic classic westerns to the real world. While said hero, usually a steely-eyed, silent-type stranger, rides into town either to paint the town red or face a showdown usually resulting in victory over the bad guys, Knocking’s protagonist gets no such pleasure. Instead, he becomes the centre of a domestic drama as a point-out to the unsavoury side of the once-coveted icon of heroism, chivalry and vigilante justice.
 
This movie is recommended and is worth your time of tracking it down to a screen where it is showing as it has only been given a limited release… now what was I saying last week about accessibility?