‘Shimmer Lake’ is a NETFLIX Original movie, and it shows that creativity is not limited to the big screen. This is now available for streaming right now, so you can check it out for yourself. This takes a tale of a bank robbery in a small Midwestern town and turns it upside-down.
More accurately, it tells the story in reverse. That is, the movie is told in backwards order. The first thing shown are the events of Friday, which is three days after the robbery. The following day that is portrayed is Thursday, and so on. This structure does have a very important reason, but you do not see that until the first day. That first day is the day of the robbery, and it is the last day that is shown in the movie.
The events surround Sherriff Zeke Sikes (Benjamin Walker) who is caught up in the chase for the bad guys. One of the three turns out to be his brother Andy Sikes (Rainn Wilson). The local bank is owned by Judge Dawkins (John Michael Higgins), who had large amounts of cash on hand for the annual crop payments. The other thief is Chris Morrow (Mark Rendall). However the leader is Ed Burton (Wyatt Russell), a local meth dealer just released from prison.
Because the bank was federally insured, there are two bumbling FBI agents in town to ‘help out’. Agent Biltmore (Rob Corddry) and Agent Walker (Ron Livingston) don’t mind if Sherriff Zeke does all the work and solves the case, because they are pretty lazy. One of the main leads is Ed Burton’s wife, Steph Burton (Stephanie Sigman). She says that Ed said he was going to flee the country, so he beat her up and left. Steph is still upset with Ed because of what he did way before…
Ed’s time in prison was a result of an accident at his meth lab near Shimmer Lake. He and Chris Morrow were cooking the product. Ed Jr. was also there, because Ed had no other place to put him. An accidental explosion blew up the cabin. Ed Burton Jr. was only five years old when he died. Steph has never forgiven Ed.
Judge Dawkins was the one who gave Ed Burton an extremely light sentence. And Sherriff Zeke’s brother Andy Sikes was the chief Prosecutor who approved the unusual plea deal. There are a lot of shady characters and plenty of blame to go around. Since it is such a small town, the people there are keeping secrets.
When some of the secrets get revealed, there is a price to be paid by the people involved. Since the story gets told in reverse, the most shocking reveal happens on the first day. But you do not have that full impact until the very end of the movie. And that is a smart way to deliver some important facts…
You can say that the ‘backward story’ thing is a gimmick. However, the way that Oren Uziel tells the story, and way the facts are slowly revealed; it makes this the only way that it could have been done correctly. There are a lot of minor clues and little reveals that make you sit and ponder. The overall concept of working backwards in the calendar makes a lot of sense.
Quite a few of the actors are known mostly for comedy roles. But they do a fine job with this interesting and well-paced drama/mystery. Benjamin Walker comes off a little flat as Zeke. But that is how his character needs to be at the moment, not emotional but focused on the facts of the crime. Wyatt Russell, Rainn Wilson and John Michael Higgins do the tense drama very well. Ron Livingston & Rob Corddry do most of the comedy relief.
Perhaps this movie is in the shadow of ‘Memento’, another famous backward-sequenced film. Also, like that film, ‘Shimmer Lake’ is about a crime and the search to find the bad guys and see that justice is done. Then at the very end of the movie, you get some important information that changes everything. I guess you call it a ‘twist beginning’.
