December 20, 2009 -- “That Evening Sun” is a movie that could use a few more likeable characters. The two main characters are a mean old man, and a younger man who is a mean drunk, and there is no improvement in these two as the film drags on to its dismal conclusion. There are some likeable characters, but they are mostly peripheral characters who have little bearing on the film's main storyline, which is an intense rivalry that spirals down to ever increasing bitterness and hatred.

Hal Holbrook of “Into the Wild” stars as retired farmer Abner Meecham. He gets tired of sitting around waiting to die in a retirement home and decides to go back to his farm. When he gets there, he finds his son, Paul (Walton Goggins of “The Miracle of St. Anna's”) has leased his farm to Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon of “The Blind Side”) and he can't move back into his house. Abner considers Choat to be a worthless piece of white trash, and Choat does his best to live down to Abner's worst expectations of him. Out of stubbornness, Abner moves into the old slave quarters on the farm and plans to wait out Choat and take back his farm. Choat, who is much younger, boasts that he will outlive Abner. The two men have some kind of angry history. They engage in a war of wills that eventually leads to violence. Choat's wife, Ludie (Carrie Preston of “Duplicity”) and daughter, Pamela (Mia Wasikowska of “Defiance”) watch helplessly as the two men tear into each other. Pamela and Ludie are decent enough people, but are helpless to stop what is happening. The other likeable character is the old neighbor, Thurl Chessor (Barry Corbin of “No Country for Old Men”).

The acting is very good by everyone, especially Holbrook, Corbin and McKinnon, but the story has a fatal flaw. Lonzo Choat is only a few days from losing the lease on the farm when Abner arrives. All Abner has to do is wait less than a week and the farm is his. Instead, he takes extremely drastic action to force the issue. This makes no sense at all in terms of the story. A few lines of dialog could have been changed in the screenplay which would have fixed this glaring problem. What were they thinking? Despite this flaw, and the lack of anybody to root for, this is still worth watching because of the fine performances by the actors. Just beware, it is very grim and the two main characters really are very obnoxious. This film rates a B.

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