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Review

Career performances by Nolte and Coburn (who won an Academy Award) accentuate this sobering, absorbing, rough-going psychological study of the precarious relationship between an abusive father and his two sons. Nolte is Wade Whitehouse, the middle-aged sheriff of a small New Hampshire town. He doesn't seem to command respect as either lawman or divorced dad. When his aged mother dies, he attempts a reconciliation with his alcoholic father (Coburn) by moving back home to look after him. But painful memories of the past begin to resurface, and Wade -- powerless in both his professional and personal lives -- finds his world crumbling around him. Adapted from the novel by Russell Banks ("The Sweet Hereafter"), the film shares the desperation and sadness which tinged Banks' other film adaptation, but Schrader's gloomy film doesn't have Hereafter's storytelling agility. But what it may lack in cinematic expression is more than made up by Nolte and Coburn's brilliant portraits -- this is very much an actor's vehicle.