What if your son was in on a drug deal gone bad? That’s the premise of Hammer, a small and very intelligent Canadian thriller starring Will Patton. Ever since the 80s Patton has played a long list of heavies in movies like No Way Out and The Postman. Patton rarely gets a chance to play a leading man and show off his incredibly dynamic acting range. Here he plays Mr. Davis, a retired school teacher barely holding his marriage together, and carrying the guilt of an estranged son. Mark O’Brian plays that son, Chris Davis, trying to get his lfe together after being busted for distributing drugs years earlier. He is drawn back into the life and when the deal goes bad, dad can’t help but get involved.
There’s some good tension at work here and all of the performances are first rate. The pacing is excellent and running at 82 minutes long, its a lean piece of work. The end may put some people off who expect a car chase and shootout but I enjoyed. There is a lot of emotion to go with the action and the ethical questions the movie poses make it a little bit deeper than you’d expect.
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