Mark Reviews Movies: SMALL ENGINE REPAIR

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 9, 2021

Three lifelong friends, who have had their share of ups and downs, gather together at the repair shop one of them runs. They're currently on one of those downs, having said some things they didn't really mean—but that they definitely were thinking and had been thinking for a long time—before and after a big barroom brawl, which could have landed at least one of them in prison. That's the way life has been for the main characters of Small Engine Repair, an intimate drama about friendship that turns into a progressively discomforting thriller.

It comes from writer/director/star John Pollono, who's adapting his play of the same name for his directorial debut. Undoubtedly, the film is a product of the theater, with its limited setting (Most of the action, save for a pair of prologues, takes place within and immediately around the mechanic shop) and its dialogue-heavy script, which explains a lot about these characters and their pasts (The filmmaker takes advantage of flashbacks to portray some of the major stories, as is the usual tendency of stage-to-screen adaptations).

This, of course, is going to raise the age-old argument that such adaptations aren't "cinematic" enough, as if film has to be one particular way in terms of storytelling and scope. It's usually a bunk and useless point of contention for too many reasons to list, and that remains the case here. If one can't appreciate spending time with richly drawn characters and witnessing the queasy modification of tone in a story such as this one, that's entirely on one's expectations for what a film "should be," not this film itself.

We first meet the three friends when Frank (Pollono) is released from prison and comes home to retrieve his young daughter. She has been in the care of Frank's best friends Swaino (Jon Bernthal)—whose first name is Terrance, although that name's existence has disappeared from lack of use, as it sometimes happens—and Packie (Shea Whigham), whose actual name remains as enigmatic as the man himself. Frank tries to take his daughter in his arms, but she cries at being away from her unofficial uncles. That's just the way things are going to be now.

More than a decade later, the daughter has grown up. She's Crystal (Ciara Bravo), who's a pretty average teenager—spending time on her phone, taking photos to post to social media, looking forward to going away to college. The teen and the three brotherly friends celebrate Christmas together. Crystal's mother Karen (Jordana Spiro), who has struggled with drugs and alcohol for some time now, has come to town to have dinner out with her daughter. Frank, Swaino, and Packie go out to the bar, get into a fight, and say some mean things to each other. Frank calls it quits on the friendships.

Three months later, when most of the story occurs, Frank has a change of heart and invites his buddies to a reconciliatory day of beer, steaks, recreational drugs, and a fight on TV at his repair shop, where most of this tale unfolds. They catch up on the lost months and reminiscence about the good and not-so-good old days, but Frank, who keeps talking to a mysterious guy on the phone and avoiding Karen's calls, clearly has a secret objective for this get-together.

All of that is eventually revealed, although Pollono's screenplay definitely toys with our anticipation and expectations in rather subtle ways. Mostly, though, the film just observes as Frank, who finds himself in cycles of trying to help people and letting his temper get the better of him, and his friends chat, bicker, argue, remember some amusing anecdotes and some foundational stories, and come a bit too close to getting into a fight a couple of times.

One of those times comes when Swaino, a charmer and lady's man who often lets his ego get between himself and his buddies, points out Frank's predictable cycle. Frank responds by flipping a table and stomping around the shop, and the way Swaino's apology brings him to tears tells us that, beneath the guy's confident swagger and occasional selfishness, there's a vulnerable man at Swaino's core. Meanwhile, Packie serves as the sensitive peacekeeper of the trio, always there with a soft but firm tone, some unlikely words of clear but obscurely stated wisdom, and a tendency toward keeping conversation and word choice more polite than his friends and anyone else in town.

All three of these actors embody each of these characters with sturdy, clear-minded ease. That comes as little surprise in the case of Pollono (who created all these guys, after all) and Bernthal, who originated their respective roles in the stage production, but Whigham is equally comfortable and especially noteworthy in his role. On a side note, there are some other nice touches of casting, such as having Pollono's wife Jennifer play a brief love interest, who gives Frank a "beautiful but tragic" story to tell his friends, and seeing James Badge Dale, who performed in later productions of the play, show up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.

A plot does emerge, involving the arrival of Chad (Spencer House), a small-time drug dealer from a well-to-do family, and the sad, dark secret Frank has been keeping from everyone. The filmmaker makes fine and then severe changes in tone, as the tale of sadness, rage, and regret that has been happening in the background emerges. The minimalist filmmaking matches that, in more close-ups and in how confining the shop floor and an anteroom seem to become.

The point, perhaps, is that, as a director, Pollono knows exactly what he wants to do with this material and how to accomplish that. With its well-crafted characters and increasingly challenging story, Small Engine Repair is also exactly what it needs to be.

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