Ultimate Revenge

This is an interesting film for me in that I actually know someone like Lou Diamond Phillips's character in Sioux City. He's also an orphan Indian, in his case Chippewa, who was adopted and raised by Jewish parents. Unlike Lou's character, he shows no promise of becoming a doctor. I do wonder sometimes though if this individual's substance abuse problems might be partially the result of an identity problem. If you saw him now at the age of 36 you would not mistake him for being Jewish.

Lou Diamond Phillips faces an identity crisis in Sioux City. His mother Tantoo Cardinal gave him up for adoption at a young age to Mr.&Mrs. Goldman of Beverly Hills. He's grown up to be a young doctor interning at one of Los Angeles's hospitals. He gets a note from his birth mother with an amulet asking him to visit her on the reservation. When he goes there, he finds she's dead, victim of a fire of suspicious origin.

In Lou Diamond Phillips's multi-cultural background is part Cherokee Indian and he's certainly taken on Indian roles and done them quite well as he does in Sioux City. He directed this film and it's a good one that was obviously a labor of love for him. Sad in this day and age a film like Sioux City could not find an audience because it's a good story of a man both solving the riddle of his mother's death and the riddle of his own identity.

Phillips got good support from Salli Richardson as the trading post owner on the reservation, Ralph Waite, not as lovable Dad Walton, but a vicious and corrupt local sheriff and Apesanahkwat as Lou's birth grandfather, a Lakota Medicine Man.

The cinematography at the Lakota Reservation was done with an obviously loving hand. It's a good effort by Lou Diamond Phillips and his cast and it's sad more people didn't get to see this.