Barnes & Noble

Director Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) explores the painful legacy of the first Americans in this subdued family drama. Set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, under the ever-present gaze of Mt. Rushmore's carved heads, Skins follows the day-to-day struggles of two brothers: Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig), a reservation cop, and Mogie (Graham Greene), his alcoholic older brother. The film works best as a character study of Mogie, whose chronic drinking is shown unflinchingly, without diminishing his essential dignity. Credit here goes to Greene, who gives perhaps the finest performance of his career. He compassionately probes the anger and pride underlying Mogie's debilitating addiction. Schweig's Rudy is the straight arrow of the family, yet he too has a dark obsession that will ultimately lead to tragic consequences. While injustice at the hands of the white man is a theme in Skins, it serves primarily as a historical backdrop, most poignantly when Mogie recounts the story of the historic massacre at Wounded Knee. The film's focus, though, is on the present day, showing how Indians with wounded souls turn against their own people and against themselves. While Skins proposes no quick fixes to the suffering it portrays, it is imbued with a sense of hope that emerges from the depths of American Indian spirituality and from small acts of contemporary rebellion. The result is a small film with a big heart and a powerful social conscience. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Chris Eyre, who directed the independent success story Smoke Signals -- one of the first motion pictures directed by, written by, and starring Native American talent -- offers another look at contemporary Native American culture in this hard-hitting drama. Rudy (Eric Schweig) and Mogie (Graham Greene) are two brothers living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Located in the poorest county in the United States, joblessness and alcoholism are all-too-common facts of life in Pine Ridge, and Rudy and Mogie represent opposite ends of the scale of fortune. Mogie, a Vietnam veteran who came home emotionally scarred by the war, has a severe drinking problem and can't relate to his teenage son Herbie (Noah Watts), while Mogie's younger brother Rudy has struggled to better himself, and as a law enforcement officer is a respected member of the Pine Ridge community. But while Rudy is determined to do something positive for his town, he feels there's only so much he can do as a lawman, and in his off-hours he's become a vigilante, roughing up people whom he believes are helping to bring down Pine Ridge, and plotting to blow up a nearby liquor store that profits from the widespread alcoholism that has destroyed the lives of so many of his people, including his brother. Skins received its world premier at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Mark Deming

Boston Globe

For all its serious sense of purpose ... [it] finds a way to lay bare the tragedies of its setting with a good deal of warmth and humor. Janice Page

San Francisco Chronicle

Played by Graham Greene ... in one of the year's best performances, [Mogie's] a fully dimensional character. Edward Guthmann

Product Details

• UPC: 687797872098
• Source: FIRST LOOK PICTURES
• Sound: Dolby Digital Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Español
• Time: 1:27:00
• Sales Rank: 13,600

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