The Iron Orchard is a drama about a young man thrust into the vibrant and brutal world of oil fields, who works his way through the ranks.
It’s an old story but a good one, that of rags to riches, the very backbone of the American Dream and boy is there no shortage of them on tap at the movies. The best ones have spun it so that the power earned humbles or destroys the good man at the start, which is where director Ty Roberts drops us in his latest, an adaptation of the acclaimed book by Edmund Pendleton Van Zandt Jr. The Iron Orchard is a noble effort with great ambition and attention to detail but is beyond that a superficial experience that has no heart, playing out to its predictable end without much weight.
Jim McNeely (Lane Garrison) arrives in West Texas, 1939, ready to make a name for himself, starting at the bottom of the rung digging trenches and fighting for respect. He’s left behind a girl he can’t marry and is on a quest to turn himself around and reach the top. He eventually scrabbles together enough money to buy a small plot of land and sure enough, he strikes oil, and soon after, great wealth. In the process, as he grows more ruthless, he steps hard on those who fought alongside him, including his new wife Lee (Ali Cobrin) and partner Dent (Austin Nichols).
You want to like this. You really do. It’s a good looking movie with plenty on sight that feels authentic, the time and setting convincing and properly romanized. However, it breaks apart fast as soon as anyone starts talking, the dialogue all too artificial, as if these people are stereotypes of the era they come from rather than legitimate hard-working folks trying to survive in desperate times. The movie is wedged into a sort of family-friendly corner so it can’t go where it needs to, not a single moment raw enough to see a man curse or fight with any sound punches, the whole thing on a generic conveyor belt that tells a great story but with no believability.
Relationships are at best handled with little impact, especially the crucial joining of McNeely and Lee, she married at the time, the two apparently drawn to each other so fiercely she leaves her indifferent husband. Unfortunately, there is no chemistry between these people, their early meetings, which should feel heated with some kind of untapped passion, are simply bland conversations and obvious flirtations that don’t make their affair feel all that earned. Yes, Corbin has some real presence here, and given some chance to imbibe Lee with an edge, but it’s not offered enough space to matter.
While the film does have its message firmly staked in the ground, McNeely as a character doesn’t swing far enough around it to feel significant. There isn’t one encounter in the whole movie where you don’t know exactly what is going to happen, every scene rolled out in perfuctory fashion so as to hit all the landmarks we expect, stripping the otherwise very high production of any lasting potential.