Film Review: A Patient Man (2020)
A Patient Man may stumble more than it shines, but there’s still some good to be found in this low-budget revenge film. It hits all the expected beats right on cue and it isn’t difficult to figure out what’s going on earlier than we’re supposed to, yet A Patient Manmanages enough entertainment value to keep one from turning the channel of nodding off – for what that’s worth.
TV actor Jonathan Mangum plays Tom, an average joe who rides a bike to work following a tragic car accident that killed his wife. Little by little, details of the accident and its aftermath are revealed, as are Tom’s revelations about its cause. What starts as a tale about grief and trauma morphs into one of revenge. Some stilted acting and unrealistic dialogue slow things down, but there’s something oddly refreshing about Tom’s mundane and relatively uncomplicated act of vengeance.
Most revenge movies are elaborate and often overly complicated affairs that make an attempt at uncomfortably mashing Alfred Hitchcock and The Count of Monte Cristo together into a usable mess, and I suspect A Patient Man was meant to fall into this category (watch for the Hitchcock marathon advertised on a movie theater marquee). But in failing that, it succeeds at standing apart. Tom’s plot is not contingent on the dominoes falling just so, and it’s not weaved into an intricate pattern of hand-wringing self-satisfaction. No, it’s quite simple, really, and with simplicity comes satisfaction – albeit not the kind we’re used to.
