Roy Chutney (Ryan Gosling) finds himself spiralling when two personally devastating events happen back to back. First, his emotionally distant father commits suicide. Second, he is cut from the football team that gives him direction. His path to get back on track may come from local eccentric Gideon Ferguson (David Morse) who approaches him to join a six-man football team. 

Ryan Gosling followed up his breakthrough lead performance in The Believer with this low budget look at rural life in Montana. And whilst The Believer was a bleak assessment of learned hate, The Slaughter Rule just simply says that life is bleak. 

Roy is struggling after the life changing events. He drinks at bars with his friends and begins a relationship with a barmaid named Skyla (Clea DuVall). It is only when he gets to play football again in the freezing wastes of Montana that he begins to feel himself again. But Gideon’s reasons for wanting Roy to join his team are not exactly altruistic. Rumours swirl around town about his sexuality and the death of another teenager that he coached in another town. David Morse’s performance as Gideon is the stand out of the film as he manages to encapsulate the inward struggle inside his character that never gets resolved. 

The negatives that weigh the film down are the fact that it is perhaps too weighted in reality. Dramatically little happens and the emotional challenges that Roy and Gideon face are still there at the film’s end, they just perhaps have learnt to face them a little more than they once did. Add this to the bleak, cold environment of Montana and you might find yourself needing something to perk yourself up by the time the film ends. 

If bleak indie films are your vibe then this is for you. Otherwise it helped cement Gosling’s up and coming status alongside an already established character actor.