A teenager at a personal crossroads finds himself questioning the things that have given his life meaning in this independent coming-of-age drama. Roy Chutney is a high school senior in the fictional Montana town of Blue Springs. Roy does not have an especially close relationship with his mother Evangelline, and he has not seen his father in years. That does not prevent Roy from feeling emotionally devastated when he learns that his father has killed himself, and Roy's self-esteem takes a beating when he is cut from the high schoolfootball team shortly afterward. Roy whiles away his time by swilling beer with his best friend, Tracy Two Dogs, and falling into a romance with Skyla, a barmaid at a local tavern, but it seems that Roy's short time on the high school gridiron impressed Gideon Ferguson, a local character who coaches an unsanctioned high school six man football team when he is not delivering newspapers or trying to score a gig singing country songs at nearby honky-tonks. Gideon thinks that Roy has potential and asks him to join his team; encouraged by Gideon's belief in him, Roy agrees, and he persuades Tracy to tag along. While playing hardscrabble six-man football helps restore Roy's self-confidence, he finds it does not answer his questions about his future or his relationship with Skyla. When Gideon's overwhelming interest in Roy begins to lend credence to the rumors that Gideon is gay, Roy starts to wonder just why he was asked to join the team.
Production
, founder of the alternative country bands Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, composed the film's musical score. New songs were written and performed by Vic Chesnutt and Freakwater, and existing songs by Ryan Adams, Uncle Tupelo, and the Pernice Brothers were also included. Filming for the movie largely took place in Great Falls, Montana and a series of small towns in the Great Falls vicinity. The title of the film comes from the term "slaughter rule." The unofficial rule provides for an athletic competition's premature conclusion if one team is ahead of the other by a certain number of points prior to game's end. The rule helps to avoid humiliating the losing team further.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 31 reviews, and an average rating of 5.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A bleak but original indie, The Slaughter Rule benefits from outstanding performances by Ryan Gosling and David Morse." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film has received mixed reviews. While the performances by Morse and Gosling were generally received positively, some reviews of the film criticized the script and the film itself. For example, reviewing the film for The New York Times, Stephen Holden praised the performances of Gosling and Morse but opined that the film is "confused" and "doesn't have much dramatic momentum". Manohla Dargis, in her review for the Los Angeles Times, praised the film's cinematography but wrote that although the film has the virtue of sincerity, the story is "over-explained". Joe Leydon of Variety claimed the script "plays like a first draft". However, Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle thought that the "writing and directing team of twin brothers Alex and Andrew Smith have made an astonishingly good first feature". J. R. Jones, writing in Chicago Reader, described the film as "powerful" and especially praised David Morse's performance.
