Juggernaut

In Juggernaut, a first feature from Vancouver- based writer/director Daniel DiMarco, an alcoholic-turned-preacher ( Peter McRobbie) tells his congregants that a good man can do bad things and a bad man can do good things, so what makes a man good? It’s a forgivable bit of on-the-nose dialogue in this story that flips the bad- seed- comeshome story on its head.

Jack Kesy stars as Saxon Gamble. That name may sound like it belongs on a high-end British department store, but Saxon is an ex-con who rolls into his hometown after three years “away,” only to find his mother has committed suicide while his brother, Dean ( David Cubitt), has become a local big shot who recently built a prison. Oh, and the preacher’s their dad.

DiMarco opens with Saxon getting in a bar fight and winding up in said prison, but soon the “bad” brother is playing detective, after smelling something fishy in the story of how his mom supposedly took her life. And the good brother is revealed to have some shady connections in the business world.

If there’s a piece that doesn’t quite fit into this puzzle, it’s Amanda Crew as Amelia, Dean’s fiancée. On the one hand, she has no chemistry with her husbandto- be; on the other, her sudden romantic interest in Saxon makes just as little sense. The script just doesn’t know what to do with her.

Romantic misfires aside, Juggernaut operates as a slick little mystery fleshed out with some fine Canadian talent, including the always reliable Stephen McHattie as a local ne’er- do- well, and Ty Olsson as his ne’er- e’er- dowell son. British Columbia doubles seamlessly for the mid-’ 80s American western setting, and there’s some nice dialogue, as when Saxon pays McHattie’s character for some intel and the latter asks if he also wants something done. “Just information,” Saxon clarifies. “I’ ll do the doin’ myself.”

Juggernaut opens March 9 at the Carlton in Toronto, and March 27 on demand.