"Brigham City", the second movie from writer, actor, director Richard Dutcher, attempts to follow up Dutcher's excellent and challenging first film ("God's Army") with an even darker, more ambitious film. It's good to see Dutcher avoiding 'playing it safe' with his sophomore film, even if the end result is a slightly lesser movie than his first. No, "Brigham City" isn't quite up to the same level as "God's Army", but in a sense comparisons are meaningless since "Brigham City" and "God's Army" are completely different beasts, and Dutcher should be praised for trying something new without copying his earlier effort, regardless if the results aren't completely successful.
While many LDS films present an idealistic view of life and church membership, both of Dutcher's movies have shown some of the darker aspects of humanity, even (and especially) within members of the Church. Of course, "God's Army", whose version of 'darkness' never went beyond practical jokes and reading anti-Mormon literature, is a literal walk in the park compared with "Brigham City's murder, rape, pornography and the real prospect that a church member is a serial killer. Everyone knows that Church members can and do commit any sin that non-members do (including murder), even if few like to talk about it, and Dutcher deserves credit for addressing a somewhat 'taboo' subject directly.
The acting, like in "God's Army", is generally good (in fact, has most of the same people), and the dialogue is above average--often clever, as a seemingly innocuous conversation early in the movie is shown to have deeper meaning near the end. Dutcher raises some serious questions about religion and morality which the movie doesn't quite get around to answering as fully as it could have, but it deserves credit for even raising the issues in the first place.
Brigham City's biggest flaw is the use of too much screen time in 'red herrings'--scenes that are meant to suggest who the serial killer could be, but which turn out to be false when the killer is revealed at the end. The technique is overused, and destroys any potential the movie had for repeat viewings. 'Red herring' scenes may be effective the first time you see the movie, but will be tedious to sit through a second time when you already know who the killer is. In contrast to truly classic movies which reward repeat viewings, I can't see how anyone would want to see Brigham City more than once.
The worst part is, many of those scenes could have been cut and the extra time used to further develop some of the deeper points of the movie, and I left with the feeling Dutcher missed some opportunities to make the movie truly powerful.
Overall, though, Brigham City shows Richard Dutcher as an ambitious and talented filmmaker--the best the LDS cinema genre has to offer--and, provided the somewhat dark material (for a Church movie) doesn't scare you off, it is well worth a viewing.
Final Grade: B
Analysis and Other Comments (possible spoilers):
(1) "Brigham City" is a Church movie...it is also PG-13. It earns its higher rating considering it concerns a serial killer and a set of grisly murders, even though the actual blood and violence content is commendably restrained given the subject matter. Parents should think twice before letting young kids see it, despite it being a 'Church film'.
For adults and mature kids, though, there really isn't anything 'objectionable' to be concerned about--no sex or profanity, and nothing more violence-wise than you'd see on a network TV cop show or even a news broadcast (probably less...given the state of network TV cop and CSI shows today).
Brigham City is one of the prime examples of why the PG-13 rating is inherently different than the R rating. People like to claim that it's just a matter of degrees, but it's not. You get the R rating because of 'R-rated' levels of profanity, violence, or sexual material. PG-13 ratings, on the other hand, are NOT just based on profanity/violence/sexual content levels (although often are, of course). A movie about a serial killer, no matter how little violence is actually on-screen, is fundamentally not a movie for kids and deserves the PG-13 rating. (You wouldn't show this movie to a 6 year old, obviously...) However, there's really nothing 'offensive' in it, nothing for which you'd be ashamed if the prophet came over to your house and found you watching it (as the cliché goes).
(2) One of the key characters in "Brigham City" is a female FBI agent who starts working with the local authorities in the small town after the murders start. She's not LDS, but through the process of investigating the people in the town, she starts learning about church principles.
Having her character be non-LDS is an effective way to for Dutcher to introduce and discuss religious issues within the context of the events of the movie without making it sound redundant (coming from the mouths of long-time Church members). It's a good idea--but I think it's not used as effectively as it could have been. One issue hinted at through the course of the movie is why God would allow murders to happen, especially to 'righteous' people. There's a conversation between the FBI agent and the sheriff outside on a porch one evening where the actual topic of conversation is inconsequential, but would have been better served by addressing this issue, since it is directly related to the work both of them are doing.
It would have been a natural question from an admitted non-religious person to a religious person: "So...why does God allow good people to be murdered?" and the sheriff could have given her a simple explanation. As mentioned above, Dutcher deserves credit for even raising the question, but wastes too much time with meaningless conversations and the aforementioned red herring scenes which could have been used to discuss this question more deeply.
Why does God allow good people to be killed by bad people? It's simple: free agency. How important is free agency? Well, an entire war was fought in heaven over it, causing the loss of a full third of Heavenly Father's innumerable children, so how important do you think it is?
Many people think that an omnipotent God (if He exists) should stop people from killing other people, without really considering what the world would be like if it were impossible to kill (or hurt, or sadden) someone. Most people would prefer God reach out his hand and stop other people from doing what is 'wrong'...but certainly don't want anyone interfering in their own life. Would they really prefer having an omnipotent being controlling every action of every day, making sure that they don't do things that cause harm to anyone else, including themselves?
Henry Ford had a famous saying, "You can have any color Ford you want...as long as it's black." If God said you were free to make any choice you wanted...as long as it was choices A, B, or C, with choices D, E, F, G and H off limits, are you really free? Everyone must have the option to do evil, or else doing good will have no meaning. How could anyone learn and appreciate the value of life unless the taking of life was possible?
(3) Another concept introduced in "Brigham City" but not explored as fully as it could have been: In the last third of the movie, the sheriff calls everyone in town together and sends them out two by two to search all the homes in the area. This, of course, is blatantly illegal and a gross violation of the residents' civil rights. The sheriff justifies it by saying he's trying to save the life of a kidnapped girl, despite the fact that there's absolutely nothing in the killer's MO in the previous murders that suggests he keeps the victims alive for any significant length of time. (Obviously, the search fails...)
This is in a sense a fascinating sequence because it is so illegal--showing what lengths even good people go to in order to achieve their ostensibly worthy goals--the 'ends justifying the means' question. I would have liked the screenplay to expand on this concept further, showing what ramifications came from such a big violation of people's rights. Even in a small town, surely there would have been complaints and an inquiry from the state government--even a lawsuit.
Making things worse was the fact that the sheriff was also the bishop of the local ward. Another key issue presented by the movie was the inherent conflict of having a dual role in the community--having a job and having a church calling. An interesting avenue of discussion (hit on only briefly in the movie) would be how the calling of bishop interferes with the calling of sheriff and vice versa. Imagine how the guy with a pornography stash in his closet feels when his bishop (acting as sheriff) illegally searches his house and discovers it. Wouldn't you imagine that would create an odd atmosphere the next time he had a bishop's interview? Wouldn't his actions as sheriff hurt (if not destroy outright) his ability as bishop to help this brother through the process of repentance? Again, "Brigham City" deserves praise for containing some deep, discussion-worthy content (most movies don't bother) even if the discussion is somewhat incomplete.
(4) For all my talk in the second paragraph about "showing that Church members can commit any sin that non-members can", I don't know if it's clear that the killer WAS in fact Mormon. We learn that he stole the identity of a Church member in order to start his new life, but not whether he himself was beforehand. I don't remember anything conclusive one way or the other in "Brigham City", but I would lean towards him having to be Mormon simply because I think it would be too difficult for a non-member to pass himself off successfully as a Church member, especially living with an active, LDS wife. Plus, it would have been too much of a 'cop-out' to introduce the theme of evil within Church members and have the true 'villain' then be revealed as a non-member. Other LDS filmmakers may have been tempted in a similar situation, but Dutcher would not have accepted this...