Live Cargo

Logan Sandler's "Live Cargo" is stuffed with arty close-ups and stunning backdrops, but the emotions to connect them are missing.

The black-and-white debut of writer-director Logan Sandler is just sharp enough to complicate its clichés with strong performances and a mesmerizing tone that pushes the mopey proceedings into psychological thriller territory.

A film that confuses silence with great insight, beautiful imagery with emotion and the empty with the profound.

Absolutely breathtaking black-and-white neo-noir cinematography by Daniella Nowitz adds depth and emotional context. But it can't fully flesh out the story ...

The need to tell a story and the desire not to collide in Live Cargo, the narratively uneven but visually exquisite debut feature from writer-director Logan Sandler.

"Live Cargo" is one of the most evocatively shot debut films in recent memory, which is why its shabby storytelling is such a crushing disappointment.

It's a compelling sketch stretched too thin, with not enough additional substance to fill out a feature.

The faces in Logan Sandler's film, like the landscapes of the paradise setting, only convey an empty sort of ambiguity.

Perhaps we're meant to be the outsiders, peering in to the roiling waves without a clear sense of what's happening just beneath the surface.

Nicely observed, but misses the mark.

Anchored by a quartet of equally strong and understated performances by Hemingway, Stanfield, Wisdom, and Dillon, "Live Cargo" proves itself to be a singularly artful film of great emotional heft.