Daniel Peddle returns with a back-woods, southern-set tale entitled MOSS

TrustMovies was very impressed with young filmmaker Daniel Peddle's earlier narrative movie, Sunset Edge, and so was quite looking forward to seeing his latest -- a North Carolina seacoast-set, slice-of-life coming-of-age film titled eponymously with the name of its main character, MOSS.

Abloom with the area's flora and fauna -- marijuana to alligators -- the movie stars a young film newcomer, Mitchell Slaggert (shown at right), who possesses a nice face, a great body and just about enough charisma to hold an audience for the requisite 80-minute running time.

Mr. Peddle, shown at left, here concentrates much more heavily on a single character than he did in Sunset Edge, which was an ensemble piece, and his Moss is a young man with a lot of problems -- too many of which are laid out via rather clunky exposition.

In no time at all we've learned that today is Moss' birthday, that his mom died in childbirth and that he feels his dad blames him for this.

To escape the fraught father-son relationship, Moss says he is going to visit his kindlier grandmother but stops at his best friend's

houseboat to pick up some drugs and then gets waylaid en route by an attractive older woman (Christine Marzano, below), with whom he quickly bonds, gets high (using an apple as conduit!) and has sex -- all of which saddles the film was an element of male wish-fulfillment/fantasy.

This is handled reasonably well, however, so that if we wish to see it as fantasy, we certainly can. We can also view it as a Southern-set coming-of-age tale, a chance for some necessary parent/child bonding, and/or a warning about the consequences of being late to your grandmother's house.

The Southern atmosphere, fairly dripping with sloth and humidity, is captured well, and the performances are as good as the sparse but not nearly deep enough script will allow.

That we learn next to nothing about the woman or the best friend (Dorian Cobb, above) is perhaps acceptable, but concerning Moss and his dad (nicely played by Billy Ray Suggs, shown at bottom), we learn only enough to be able to ascertain, by film's end, that this has proven a break-through day for them both. Which smacks more of manufacture than of anything organic.

Still, young Slaggert (above, who has modeled for Calvin Klein) is a feast for the eyes. He, along with the ambience Peddle presents, just might constitute a movie worth watching.

From Breaking Glass Pictures and running just 80 minutes, Moss opens this Friday, July 6, in New York City (at the Cinema Village) and in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Music Hall 3) before hitting home video the following Tuesday, July 10 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Netflix streaming tip: Kang Woo-Suk's MOSS explores the nexus of religion and power in a small South Korean community

If you haven't yet climbed aboard the bandwagon for new films from South Korea, MOSS, a strange and riveting 2010 film about the use and abuse of religion and power, is a good place to begin. If you already know of the cinematic delights -- often loony, bloody and brash -- coming out of this much-troubled country after its century-long struggles with Asian colonialism, unnecessary separation, dictatorships and the usual further power struggles, then you'll probably want to add this unusual film to your queue.

In it, a troubled son (Park Hae-il, below) receives an anonymous phone call alerting him to the death of his estranged dad, and so he returns to the quiet mountain community where he father lived and worked. The film, directed by Kang Woo Suk (the Public Enemy series and Silmido) is neither the bloodiest nor the strangest nor the most concerned (as so many South Korea movies are) with vengeance, but it is a very good example of what that country's filmmakers are able to get right: a convulsively interesting story with a timely theme handled in a style that keeps you glued to the screen.

In this case, it's a religion (more like a religious cult, thanks to its charismatic leader: the recently deceased dad) used to control the town by its chief of police (Jung Jae-young, below) and his minions. This part of the story is plain enough, but the how and why all this has happened takes some unraveling, as well as the back story for each of the quartet of sleazy helpers the police chief has in tow, and the young woman who provides these men with their off-hours entertainment.

The plot thickens nicely, as our hero -- who has his own back story and a worthy nemesis who keeps after him, trying to proves his criminal intent -- with a few murder attempts on his life, uses his nemesis as a helper in his own investigation into his father's death.

The intensity never wanes, and the cast delivers some expert performances, from supporting actors to the two main combatants. Mostly, though, it's that particularly Korean blend of storytelling and style that will keep you hooked. Moss is another major movie from one of Asia's foremost film-making countries.

From CJ Entertainment, Moss, running two hours and 22 minutes (South Korean movies tend to be long but worth the time) is available via Netflix streaming and elsewhere, and is also for sale on DVD.