After four feature films, Sean Penn’s talent as a director is now inarguable, which makes his fine debut even more interesting to watch. Filmed in Plattsmouth (as well as Omaha and Council Bluffs) and set in the early 1970s, THE INDIAN RUNNER shares some DNA with his latest feature, INTO THE WILD—a fetish for the road and the prairie landscape, affinity for regular-guy working-class midwesterners, the difficulty of relationships between parents and grown children, rage at the Man. (Kurt Andersen)