Skins on AllMovie

Filmmaker Chris Eyre, who directed the independent success story Smoke Signals -- one of the first motion pictures directed by, written by, and starring Native American talent -- offers another look at contemporary Native American culture in this hard-hitting drama. Rudy (Eric Schweig) and Mogie (Graham Greene) are two brothers living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Located in the poorest county in the United States, joblessness and alcoholism are all-too-common facts of life in Pine Ridge, and Rudy and Mogie represent opposite ends of the scale of fortune. Mogie, a Vietnam veteran who came home emotionally scarred by the war, has a severe drinking problem and can't relate to his teenage son Herbie (Noah Watts), while Mogie's younger brother Rudy has struggled to better himself, and as a law enforcement officer is a respected member of the Pine Ridge community. But while Rudy is determined to do something positive for his town, he feels there's only so much he can do as a lawman, and in his off-hours he's become a vigilante, roughing up people whom he believes are helping to bring down Pine Ridge, and plotting to blow up a nearby liquor store that profits from the widespread alcoholism that has destroyed the lives of so many of his people, including his brother. Skins received its world premier at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.