The Slaughter Rule

Product Description The Slaughter Rule is a rich, intense portrait of a young football player facing losses, on the field and off. Roy Chutney (Gosling) is a defeated football hero whose only chance of saving his dignity is "the slaughter rule", a forced end to the game before the point of humiliation. Roy is lost in a world without rules, until renegade coach (Morse) and a new romance give him the strength for one last play. This lush cinematic journey, the first feature film from writers / directors Andrew and Alex Smith, debuted at he 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Amazon.com While it may sound like some brutal warrior metaphor for life, this story of a high school boy facing up to the complexities of the adult world is a tender drama about troubled souls. Amiable, good-natured Roy (Ryan Gosling) keeps life at arm's length until renegade coach Gid (a paternal David Morse, who nurses his own emotional wounds) scouts him for a rural six-man football league--a rough, unforgiving game as much rugby as traditional gridiron action--and brings out his hibernating alpha-wolf. Roy also gets lessons in love from "older woman" Clea Duvall, but this is not your usual coming-of-age film. Set on the forever plain and under the magnificent sky of the Montana high desert, and photographed with the crispness of a winter morning, The Slaughter Rule offers an unsentimental portrait of a world in which winning is secondary to simply surviving till the end of the game. --Sean Axmaker