Movie goers may instantly attribute Audrey Cummings’ Place of Bones with fellow westerns, but theatre aficionados may lean more towards low-end productions with sloppy offerings.  As someone who finds themselves in the intersection of both groups, Place of Bones pulls me towards my fellow theatre nerds and that, well, sucks.

After world-building with the Darken franchise and adding on to a pre-existing property (She Never Died), Cummings throws back to her entertaining directorial debut Berkshire County with her latest film Place of Bones;  offering audiences a slick ’n straightforward thriller about an incoming threat closing in on an innocent protagonist.  This time, the lead role is shared by a mother-daughter dynamic, Pandora (Heather Graham, last seen in Best. Christmas. Ever! and Suitable Flesh) and her spry daughter Hester (Brielle Robillard).  The small family is rattled when an injured outlaw, Calhoun (Corin Nemec), is found close to their cabin.  They’re even more surprised when they find out he’s loaded with stolen money, and he’s on the run from his criminal compadres led by merciless cowpoke Bear John (Tom Hopper of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard).

Place of Bones wants to be a tense chamber piece, alternating between developing stories in Pandora’s cabin and the crooks closing in on Calhoun.  But instead, audiences receive a ham-fisted slow burn featuring dialogue that tries too hard to be cool, badly-drawn western caricatures (more attention has been paid towards the actors’ drawls and vernacular than characterization), and a televisual presentation that lacks narrative creativity and shot variety.  With her first real blunder, Cummings’ hands are tied under the stripped-down qualities of this production;  resulting in a movie that aims big and broad to make up for its missing pieces.

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