United States, Italy · 2018
Rated R · 1h 52m
Director Ty Roberts
Starring Lane Garrison, Ali Cobrin, Austin Nichols, Lew Temple
Genre Drama, History, Romance
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“The Iron Orchard" is the story of Jim McNeely, a young man thrust into the vibrant and brutal West Texas oilfields in 1939, who works his way through the ranks to ultimately become a formidable wildcatter.
There’s a degree of mythologization at work here, an attempt to frame the birth of the Texas oil industry as this great drinking game between old money and new money. What it lacks is a distinct perspective; for all its period details and solid acting, the underlying message about this time in Texas oil history – that it was right, that it was wrong, that it was necessary – is lacking. This makes The Iron Orchard a film that is both worse and better than it could have been.
The New Yorker by Anthony Lane
The Iron Orchard, though geographically confined, is all over the place. We flit past the patches of Jim’s life that matter (what happened during those two years, as the dollars poured in?) and linger on those that don’t. Random flashbacks alert us to his youth. The musical score is overcooked, the cast underpowered, and the dialogue something of a mishmash.
As competently put together as this movie is, it imparted to me no sense of a higher calling, and thus left me unmoved.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
This lovingly made homage to avarice feels strangely limp. Instead of gushing, it trickles.
The narrative itself, however, is not without its bumpy stretches. The Iron Orchard is satisfyingly involving and entertaining as a whole — call it “Giant Lite” and you won’t be far off the mark — and the performances are sufficiently compelling to ease a viewer through some abrupt and elliptical transitions.
Los Angeles Times by Kimber Myers
Garrison’s McNeely damns the overlong film; he’s neither a good man nor a good character, someone that we can’t care about or care to watch.
Film Threat by Nick Rocco Scalia
The film is never less than entertaining, and it’s easy enough to get caught up in its roller-coaster narrative and impressive recreation of mid-century Texas, but its makers occasionally struggle to get a handle on their protagonist and the attendant themes of ambition, failure, and stubborn perseverance that he represents.
Director Ty Roberts’s film is unable to realize that its subject matter is that of a horror story.
This is smelly, dirty authentic-feeling male bonding and is the best thing in the movie.
Friendship overcomes any obstacle.