2011 Sundance Bonus Predictions: George Ratliff’s Salvation Boulevard

#58. Salvation Boulevard – George Ratliff

I distinctly remember George Ratliff’s Joshua being a well-received buyer title in Park City. Currently in post-production, Ratliff might make it two for two with what appears to be a high value title for pick-up. Salvation Boulevard which packs several Sundance alumni in Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Pierce Brosnan, Marisa Tomei, Isabelle Fuhrman, Greg Kinnear and Jim Gaffigan, should be in the cards for the fest, that’s if Sundance don’t have a problem with the anti-church wave of films where, this, Farmiga’s Higher Ground and Kevin Smith’s film might form an unlikely thematic trio.

Working as both a comedy and thriller, written by Ratliff and Douglas Stone and based on the novel by Larry Beinhart, this starts with a dead professor. A suspect—who has confessed—is in custody. But nothing is what it seems. The dead man is an atheist, the accused an Islamic foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew, and the detective a Born Again Christian. As the detective gets deeper and deeper into the investigation of the death of the professor, his most basic beliefs and relationships are tried, his world is turned upside down. And yet he can’t stop searching for the real killer and the truth—no matter what the personal cost.

* Producers: Peter Fruchtman, Celine Rattray (The Kids Are All Right) and Cathy Schulman
(IONCINEMA.com Preview Page // IMDB Link)