On Your Radar: Mojave
by Kathryn Loggins

Directed by William Monahan

You may have heard of a little film a few years back called The Departed. It won four Oscars, including Best Adapted Screenplay, and we have William Monahan to thank for that. This year we get to experience Monahan’s writing expertise again with Mojave, his gritty exploration of the Hollywood film industry. Monahan also directed this thriller that pushes two men to the edges of their own respective sanities.

Thomas (Garrett Hedlund) is a celebrity artist, who is lost, suicidal and searching for meaning in the shallow industry he lives in. He takes a lonely trip out to the Mojave desert to presumably contemplate his life when he meets Jack (Oscar Isaac), a strange, but enticing drifter. They engage in a somewhat amicable philosophical discussion, but the underlying tension is ever present. After a wild mishap in the desert, Thomas comes back to Hollywood to right his wrongs and escape the looming presence of the sinister Jack. What follows in a beautifully written and excellently acted game of cat and mouse that keeps you on the edge of your seat.