CineVegas Film Festival 2008

GODSPEED is an intense, dramatic thriller set in the sublime light of Alaska’s midnight sun. Robert Saitzyk directs with adeptness and precision, turning the familiar framework of the revenge genre into a taut and complicated portrayal of a man’s descent into nightmare. Charlie Shepard is a modern-day faith healer, a man who claims that if you let go and believe, then his power to heal is very real indeed. Charlie ekes out a blue-collar existence from his “healing” sessions to support his wife and young son. But just as his business starts to fail and an old drinking habit comes back to haunt him, his family is brutally murdered by unknown assailants for seemingly no reason. Six months later, Charlie has abandoned his former life and moves through the summer days without darkness more like a ghost than a man. But then a mysterious young girl named Sarah shows up in town, looking for Charlie. Will she become the link to his family's killings? Buoyed by Joseph McKelheer’s riveting performance and captured in luscious and sensual cinematography, GODSPEED explores faith, grief, and the violent nature that may exist in all of us — where man is as much at the mercy of his own mind as he is at the mercy of the vast Alaskan landscape.

John is a novelist who writes about love…even though he's never been in love. In fact, he's pretty sure that love doesn't exist. Yet that doesn't keep him from leading a seemingly fulfilling bachelors lifestyle and honing his seduction skills to an art form. That's until he meets Mercy. A critic who writes a scathing review of his latest book, Mercy sees through John's "teetering on charming" exterior and into his shallow, egotistical core. In spite of these circumstances, or perhaps because of them, he asks her out. She says yes. Miraculously, their relationship blossoms into something very real and John begins to open up to love and life. Yet, in doing so, he exposes himself to the potential perils that come with the "L" word. Written by and starring Scott Caan, MERCY is distinctly contemporary in its setting and characters yet harkens back to love stories of old with its unabashed romanticism. Caan's writing has an intimate quality that enables him to drop in small but pertinent insights then let the ripples spread through the story. Director Patrick Hoelck employs a winning mix of luscious cinematography and low-key naturalism to excavate that strange mix of confidence, longing and denial that underpins a certain strain of male psyche. With a tone that is romantic yet authentic, Caan and Hoelck create a charmingly comic but intensely moving story about finding oneself in love.