Hammer (2019 film)
Hammer is a Canadian crime thriller film, directed by Christian Sparkes and released in 2019. The film stars Will Patton as Stephen Davis, a man in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, whose estranged son Chris (Mark O'Brien) double-crosses drug dealer Adams (Ben Cotton), forcing Stephen and Chris to reunite after Adams takes Stephen's younger sun Jeremy (Connor Price) hostage. The cast also includes Vickie Papavs as Stephen's wife Karen, as well as Dayle McLeod, Curtis Caravaggio, Lara Jean Chorostecki, Jason Weinberg, Stephen Lush, Deidre Gillard-Rowlings and Trish Rainone in supporting roles. The film premiered in the Canadian Vanguard program at the 2019 Whistler Film Festival, before going into commercial release on video on demand platform in 2020. Critical response Allie Gregory of Exclaim! wrote that "Hammer is a succinct and realistic examination of these family archetypes, never leaning too far into the outlandish tropes of the crime thriller genre. You won't see any car chases or martial arts; rather, you'll get a slick, solid, hour-and-a-half tale of the everyman stumbling through dodgy black market activity, while trying to subdue the dangers he presents to the people around him. And it works really, really well." For The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz