Doug Van Pelt

American Gun

This was the first movie I've seen. The movie has multiple stories of people effected by guns -- the single mom (the conflicted role played brilliantly by Marcia Gay Harden) and brother of one of the Columbine shooters (with the fictitious yet rhyming name of Ridgline High School); the first cop on the scene (Tony Goldwyn), who keeps reliving the nightmare of that school shooting, even three years later; a girl that moved East to escape something (perhaps the mountain region out West where the school shooting occured), who earns money for her Virginia college by working for her grandpa in a gun store; a principal (Forest Whitaker) that struggles in maintaining safety and order in a big high school; a bright student at that same school that totes a handgun around to keep safe to and fro work and school. Personalizing the issue drove the point home deftly. The surviving members of the shooter's family was an especially fascinating perspective to explore. I would've loved to have stayed for the Director's Q&A, but I had to rush to the next movie.