5/5 Starting Over...
  by Laurel-Rain Snow - Raine- (Fresno, California)
In the opening scenes of Lake City we meet Maggie (Sissy Spacek), as she bustles about in the day-to-day activities of small town life. Finally at rest on her porch steps after a long day, a melancholy aura seems to encircle her.

Flash to another scene and focus in on Billy (Troy Garity), on the wrong side of some very bad guys and their fists. Battered, he hurries home and hastily packs his bags; he then splits with Clayton, a young boy whose mother Hope has gone missing. Billy, with Clayton in tow, is on the road to somewhere - possibly to hide, or maybe to find some answers. We follow him in his journey as he approaches his home town and the mother whose sorrows from a long-ago accident dog her days and nights.

As the story unfolds, it soon becomes obvious that Billy's angst is complicated by his history of alcohol and drug abuse, and even though he is trying to change, the past will not let him go. When the drug dealers, from whom Hope stole a stash, come looking for Billy (and Hope), all hell is about to break loose.

This film is a poignant portrait of tragic circumstances, errors in judgment, and what it takes to right the wrongs of the past.

Laurel-Rain Snow
Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.


3/5 Fine Acting Saves this Movie
  by Ken Douglas (The Coast)
This was a good movie that suffers with a stoopid ending. I'm not going to say what happens, but I'll give you a scenario. Suppose some bad guys come to your house to kill you, your mother and your son. Suppose two of them are outside chasing mom and baby boy and you're in the house. You get the drop on head bad guy and bean him with a baseball bat. What do you do next? Do you clobber the bad guy on the head, make sure he can't bother you no more? Do you pick up his big gun and go outside and save your family? Not our hero, not in this flick. What he does is just plain stoopid. And these days you don't have deus ex machina endings anymore. Good guys just don't wait for the calvary, that went out with old black and white cowboy movies.

And then there was the stoopid thing our hero did. When you're on the run because the above mentioned bad guys think you've stolen a hundred grand in drugs, you don't call up some druggie girl and tell her where you are. Come on.

Okay, that being said, Sissy Spacek was outstanding in this movie. Very believable as a take charge country mother. She sees a problem, she loves her son, she does what she has to to save him and damn the cost to herself. Troy Garity is, as always, very good, but what else can you expect from Henry Fonda's grandson. And you gotta love Keith Carradine as the gas station musician who has a thing for Sissy Spacek's character. I loved Allison Sarofim and see that she has a bright future. Also, I have always loved Barry Corbin, especially his work in Northern Exposure and am glad to see he is still working. He is only in this film for a few minutes, but they're good ones as they help set up what happens later.

I'd love to give this movie five stars, but I've gotta take away one for the incredibly dumb working of the climax and another one for that faux pas where the Tom Garity character gives away his hiding place. Never happen in the real world. I understand the writer wanted the bad guys to find the good guys, but he shoulda come up with something else. The acting saves this movie.

5/5 ABSORBING FILM; GREAT ACTING; MINOR FLAWS
  by a viewer (antioch, tn United States)
Sissy Spacek has always excelled at playing mothers in rural settings (Coal Miner's Daughter, Raggedy Man, In the Bedroom, The River)so her portrayal here as a mother reunited with her estranged son is right on target. This being the case, "Lake City" is an absorbing film that amazingly gets better after repeated viewings.

The other actors in the film, mainly Troy Garity as her son Billy and the child actor who plays his son are equally fine as well. There are some heart tugging scenes (to manipulate the tear ducts)but they aren't artificial.

The excellence of the cast and what they do with what is, at times, a choppy script more than compensates for this minor flaw. Another minor flaw is the choppy editing.

But the cinematography is beautiful and the suspense factor builds momentum with each scene. I suggest watching it two or three times to get the full impact because as I said, it is one of those movies that just gets better each time one views it. I loved it and would recommend it highly!

4/5 Running Home
  by Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
LAKE CITY is a little low budget film that has a good enough story behind it, backed by several social issues that are well handled to make it work. Writers/Directors Hunter Hill and Perry Moore present a flavorful feeling of the South and keep this at times creaky story line moving along with the necessary momentum to maintain the viewer's interest.

The male lead of the film is in the Fonda line (Jane as mother, Peter as uncle, Henry as grandfather) and as such Troy Garity seems to have inherited the right genes. As Billy he is the central character: Billy left a troubled home to seek his fortune as a guitar musician, but became involved with Hope (Drea de Matteo) who is deep into drugs and drug theft and has left son Clayton (Colin Ford) in Bily's care. Billy is implicated in the drug theft and narrowly escapes death at the hands of dealer Red (David Matthews), taking Clayton with him to his hometown and mother Maggie (Sissy Spacek). Billy's alcoholism and trauma drive him to AA meetings where he shares time with his old girlfriend-now-a-cop Jennifer (Rebecca Romijn). There are flashbacks that suggest a childhood trauma in Billy's past, a trauma that has driven a schism between Troy and Maggie. And there are many twists and turns (some rather poorly delineated) that would be spoilers to reveal, but suffice it to say that this druggie on the run and son/mother relationship as well as the origin of the young keenly observant and needy Clayton together unfold the history of a family at risk.

Sissy Spacek is fine as Maggie and Troy Garity shows strong promise as Billy. There are some minor subplots that include actors such as Keith Carradine that add little except atmosphere. Despite its flaws LAKE CITY provides strong entertainment. Grady Harp, March 09