Wrestling With the Past and Future at ‘The Reunion’

“The Reunion” is a solid hostage drama, well-written by Paul Corvino and well-paced by director Larry Eudene, who guides his ensemble to fine performances, especially Tim Devlin. Devlin won the best actor award in the New York Independent Film Festival for his harrowing portrayal of a man coming apart. This low-budget but high-aiming 1998 production seems more suited to the stage than screen, but Eudene and cinematographer Pat Capone are skilled at keeping this dynamic drama from lapsing into merely a filmed play.

Devlin’s Louis is a salesman in his mid-30s still so obsessed with a humiliating incident that happened to him half a lifetime earlier that he has devised an off-year--18, to be exact--high school reunion so he can show everyone he’s no failure. Louis’ devoted, long-suffering wife Felicia (Elizabeth P. McKay) is concerned about his edgy behavior even before they leave home, and once arrived, he manages to make an obnoxious fool of himself at the high school gym, where the reunion is being held. When his long-ago tormentors, football stars Hal (Jack Mulcahy) and Joey (Patrick Ferraro), check out the boys’ locker room for old times’ sake, Louis follows them. In no time, Louis, fast losing control, grabs a gun belonging to an elderly security guard (Edouard De Soto).

Waving the pistol, Louis at last feels empowered, saying he feels like King Kong. Besides Hal, Joey, the guard and his own wife, Louis has in his thrall Hal’s elegant young wife Caroline (Mimi Langeland), Joey’s young girlfriend Ashley (Leila Sbatini), and the man who was the only friend he ever had in school, the diminutive Elden (Kristopher Medina). We can hear the building being swiftly surrounded by police; why no one takes Louis out via a transom whose glass has already been shattered remains a mystery.

Initially, Louis is preoccupied only with terrorizing and humiliating his prisoners, but as he begins getting everyone to play truth games, “The Reunion” takes off in a refreshing and provocative direction. No one is exactly as he or she at first seems, and once past confessionals, some of them quite self-pitying and out of touch with reality, a whole questioning of values emerges; even Jackie Kennedy Onassis worship gets a thorough going-over. In short, there’s no lack of substance in “The Reunion” as there is no shortage of impressive acting. Next to Devlin, Langeland draws the best role: a “trophy” wife who proves to have more courage than anyone else. “The Reunion” may be exceedingly thin on budget, but it’s lots more nourishing than most more expensive fare.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: adult themes and situations; some violence, nudity, sexual language.

‘The Reunion’

Tim Devlin: Louis

Mimi Langeland: Caroline

Leila Sbatini: Ashley

Elizabeth P. McKay: Felicia

Patrick Ferraro: Joey

Jack Mulcahy: Hal

Kristopher Medina: Elden

Edouard De Soto: Santiago

A Good Medicine Films release of an Esquire Films presentation of an Asylum Pictures production in association with Paul Corvino. Director Larry Eudene. Producers Tischa Gomez and Corvino. Screenplay Corvino. Cinematographer Pat Capone. Editor Robert Fitzgerald. Music Kirsten Vogelsang. Production designer Zelijka Pavlinnovic. Art director Sanna Riley. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

Exclusively at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 848-3500. Screens only at 11 a.m. through Sunday, except for Thursday, when it screens at 7:30 p.m.