The Slaughter Rule, is a fascinating film, due almost entirely some pretty solid lead performances. Ryan Gosling once again proves to be the most compelling new talent since Colin Farrell and veteran David Morse is as strong as ever. This story, set in a wintry and stark Montana, is the awkward tale of the unclear relationship between "normal" high schooler Roy Chutney (Ryan Gosling) and his sexually ambiguous football coach, Gideon (David Morse). Roy plays on Gideon's six-man team, which operates under the titular "slaughter rule," in which a game can be called if one team has a large and embarassingly huge lead over the other.

This isn't a high school sanctioned sport, in fact there is wagering that takes place during the games. David Morse's character recruits Gosling who is a natural quarterback, but was cut from the high school team. These squads wear archaic equipment and practice in frozen pastures and it all seems awfully strange and I'd be interested to know whether such a sport really exists.

The Slaughter Rule might have been a terrific film had it not been for some really stilted dialogue, mostly offered by Morse, diatribes about being a real athlete and greatness and a lot of wacky stuff that doesn't ring with any authenticity. He's also latently homosexual if not gay, and there is one moment where he and Gosling embrace that was actually kind of interesting and well put together, even though it was a bit uncomfortable to watch.

Morse's character is also a paper delivery boy and there is a scene when he even waxes poetic about the importance of his job and the rag that he delivers. I'll have to hand to first-time filmmakers Andrew and Alex Smith they've made a film that's just weird enough to draw you in and make you wonder what the hell is going to happen next. It's an unusual and potentially intriguing tale, but they consistently tackle the momentum of their own film with their amateurishly self-conscious direction.

Clea DuVall does a nice job of playing Gosling's older girlfriend, but then she ups and moves to Seattle. Instead of the plot unfolding naturally, they try for too much artiness including alot of wobbly hand-held shots, slo-mo effects, and disconcerting editing. The football games themselves have zero excitement or momentum and certainly have no element of realism. You can tell Gosling is a natural athlete but the play by play of the games don't stand up to scrutiny.

Morse gives a complex, unpredictable performance that might have been really something had the script not thrown a flying body block at him at every turn. Still there's probably not another actor alive that could have made this character even semi-believable. Morse has always been a favorite of Director Sean Penn and I really believe that Gosling is the closest thing we have to a Penn in this generation of actors. I haven't seen him in anything where he didn't steal the movie. The problem with The Slaughter Rule is that it really isn't worth stealing.