The setting, the characters, the music - everything just oozes old South Florida in every minute of this gem of a film. Director/writer Victor Nunez's pace seems easy and slow, but it is charged with an energy that keeps growing and growing, and the effect is flat out scary real life. Ed Harris is marvelous as a reporter who refuses to stay trapped in slimy local developer/politician Richard Jordan's plans to become governor. Blair Brown is gorgeous and stalwart as the woman Harris loves who opposes Jordan's development plans, even as her fellow activists are coerced into dropping out, one by one. Harris, Brown and Jordan are at their peak here. Every performance in the film is dead on, and yes, local politics can be downright nasty.

Just finished viewing "Flash of Green" on the Sundance Channel & was amazed by it's laid-back, easy yet altogether potent quality. Catch this if you can.

It's a wonderful example of the all-American one-good-man theme in journalism, and in the context of the coastal Florida south 'round about the early 1960s. It's about how an individual can both belong to and resist the toxic tides in his or her own immediate environment; has a delicate sense of place without (New York City style) shoving it in your face. Thematically one will also find delicious shades of Rachel Carson & Oliver Sachs (i.e., think out of the box) -- and the acting is superb. Sure, it's a bit of a melodrama; but so what. Isn't that part of what good story telling is about?

I love this movie. It represents some of the very best work of Ed Harris, Blair Brown and Richard Jordan. Aside from that, the story is intelligently written, and intrinsically American. A cynical, bored reporter is hired by a friend and ambitious real estate speculator to publicly smear a group of conservationists who stand in the way of a big land deal. The drawback is, one of the group is a woman the reporter is in love with. He agrees in order to protect her. When things become violent, he confesses his sins, and goes public with his schemes, exposing the real estate swindle. He regains some measure of his pride, and takes a series of brutal beatings in the bargain. In the end his persistence is rewarded, in some measure. Few movies take the time to explore characters as deeply as this one, and offer heroes as complex and flawed, yet still redeemable. The movies moves slowly, at the pace of the Florida landscape it portrays, but it never flags. The characters are absorbing, and the conflicts between them are always intriguing. Victor Nunez's photgraphy and subtle emphasis on mood and insight make for a very moving and thought-provoking film experience. Don't miss it. And take your time watching it. This film isn't about action and plot. It's a lot closer to real life than we've come to expect in film.