Rustic sci-fi

The Spielberg-indebted ‘Midnight Special’ is almost great

Aside from “Shotgun Stories”—which I haven’t seen—there isn’t a bad Jeff Nichols film. Though there isn’t a really great one, either.

The Arkansas-born auteur made a splash with 2011’s “Take Shelter,” a moody, hallucinatory exploration of a family man’s descent into apocalyptic delusion. He followed that up with 2012’s award-winning Matthew McConaughey-starrer, “Mud”—a Mark Twain-inspired tale of two boys from a backwoods river delta who befriend a desperate but kind-hearted criminal.

While “Mud” is his most satisfying film, with “Midnight Special” Nichols takes his rarefied storytelling aesthetic into new territory.

Michael Shannon is Roy, a former adherent of a doomsday church who abandoned the faith. With the help of a childhood friend, Lucas (Joel Edgerton), they liberate Roy’s young son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), whom the church believes is a catalyst for some version of a Biblical tribulation, which is expected to begin in a mere four days.

With no Alton, there’s no Apocalypse. The church’s leader (Sam Shepard) dispatches his minions to retrieve the boy at any cost—while playing the kidnapping off as that of his adopted son to misdirect the FBI—ensuring that God’s and Man’s law are both firmly in his corner.

It quickly becomes apparent that Alton is a little different. Sporting swimming goggles at all times, he can make machines stop working with his mind. He inexplicably knows ultra-classified military secrets. And when the goggles come off, a spectral light pours from his eyes that forever changes whoever is caught in it. Roy and Lucas will do anything, including kill, to protect him.

Believing the boy is some kind of weapon, the FBI is looking for him, too, along with Paul Sevier (Adam Driver), a curious, hyper-intelligent NSA communications analyst who might be the key to finding and understanding Alton.

“Midnight Special” is possessed of more than a few Spielbergian sensibilities, with a nod to John Carpenter’s sci-fi love story, “Starman.”

It’s a great sci-fi concept. It has a certain emotional payoff, and it looks very cool. But the sense of wonder and intrigue Nichols’ script engenders is capped by a twist that feels like a narrative cop out, a “Twilight Zone” riff lacking the cathartic punch of its promising build up. “Take Shelter” had a similar problem, though “Midnight Special” is grittier and more imaginative.

Perhaps owing to his Midwestern roots, Nichols films all carry a tenor of rustic noir, a narrative sensibility preoccupied with the dark netherworlds of rural America, and “Midnight Special” is no different, though the scale is larger and the story more high-concept.

Aided by his longtime cinematographer, Adam Stone (“Compliance”), whose dusky compositions lend the film a moody formalism, Nichols directs with a cinematic signature that accentuates the unpredictability and tension inherent in his stories. Even better—aside from his natural ability to pull off slow-burn pacing with captivating aplomb—he knows how to capture great performances.

Shannon is intense (news flash!). Edgerton is his warm counterpoint, though they both feel dangerous. Like old friends, we sense their unspoken familiarity and trust. As Alton, Lieberher delivers a star-making turn that's understated yet convincing. Driver is charismatic as always. Shepard and Kirsten Dunst (as Alton’s mother) largely occupy the periphery, though they make the most of their supporting turns.

Greatness seems within reach. Like a Richard Kelly joint without the goofy, overstuffed pretension, “Midnight Special” demands a second look, if only because it might get better.

For more from Joe, read his review of "Knight of Cups."