Somewhere it must be written that once a veteran actor starts pushing 80, he has to play the role of a curmudgeonly hermit — preferably armed. We've had Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, Hal Holbrook in That Evening Sun, Michael Caine in Harry Brown. Now, Robert Duvall takes a shot in this Southern Gothic hokum from Aaron Schneider.
Felix Bush, who's kind of like Boo Radley 50 years later, lives in the woods outside a Depression-era (you can tell from the maple-syrup lighting and the old cars) Tennessee town, a bearded pariah feared by his neighbors. One day, he emerges and pays the local undertaker (Bill Murray in Mr. Micawber mode) to arrange a pre-death funeral service so he can unload the ugly secret — suggested by the film's first and best scene — that's been eating at him for decades.
By the time of the revelatory rite, I had lost interest. Duvall adds sparkle with his cryptic decrepitude — until that becomes as mannered and canned as the rest of the movie.
