Flesh and Blood (2017)

A dreary pileup of hard-luck monologues and run-down locations, Mark Webber's "Flesh and Blood" straddles the line between fact and fiction with exhausting earnestness and a fatal dearth of narrative.

The movie bleeds honesty, though its individual components are more memorable than how they're assembled.

Commingling elements of fiction and documentary is the trickiest kind of creative alchemy - a challenge "Flesh and Blood" rises to with results that are consistently interesting but somewhat awkward nonetheless.

Actor-turned-director Mark Webber continues to mine his rough beginnings, and his real-life relationships, in the aptly titled, quietly searing Flesh and Blood.

But the film, which is raw and gritty, is essentially about the ex-con rebuilding his life in a multi-cultural neighborhood.

Mark Webber's stripped-down approach renders the messy, unglamorous lives at the film's center with dignity.

Gives us the all-too-rare opportunity to hear testimony from the sort of people who are ordinarily held at arm's length by more mainstream American cinema.