Stylish, but not enough to save the film

The Frontier falters on a basic script level. The screenplay, by Shai and Webb Wilcoxen, feels gobbled together from rejected Coen Brothers plots and re-runs on TCM. There’s a hollowness to the story; a sense that none of this is happening anywhere close to the real world. It unfolds more like a one-act community theatre play than a film narrative. There are also odd mistakes that instantly take you out of the film: Laine is usually the only person working in the diner, yet if a customer comes in and orders food, she’s able to grab it — fully prepared — from the kitchen, despite the fact that there’s no cook back there making it. A repetitiveness takes hold as well — in trying to create character traits for Laine, the script locks her into doing the same things over and over again to the point that it grows tedious. http://www.cutprintfilm.com/reviews/the-frontier/