Sunset limited

If he lives long enough, American novelist Cormac McCarthy may win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Movie audiences first heard his scathing comments on US society and human evil in 1977, when his screenplay, The Gardener's Son, was part of a PBS TV docu-drama series. Since then, three of his novels have been adapted for the cinema. All the Pretty Horses (2000) starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz, was directed by actor Billy Bob Thornton. No Country for Old Men (2007), adapted by the Coen Brothers, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem, won Best Picture and three other Oscars; and The Road (2009), starring Viggo Mortensen and directed by John Hillcoat.

McCarthy doesn't create easy reading, and the second of his two stage plays, The Sunset Limited, was an intensely disturbing discussion of life, faith, humanity and death by two contrasting middle-aged male characters, a Born-again killer (Mr Black) and a suicidal university professor (Mr White). The latter jumped in front of the Sunset Limited express train and fell into the arms of Mr Black, who took him back to his slumland rooms in order to lead him to God. Inevitably, in such a fable, Mr White undermines Mr Black's faith in himself and his religion, leaving the African-American with the thought that Mr White is a Professor of Darkness.

Tommy Lee Jones chose to star in and direct its TV presentation for HBO, joining macho acting forces with Samuel L Jackson. Theirs is a bravado partnership, their conversation well paced and neatly spliced.

Male two-handers can be fine star vehicles, and there have been smarter efforts, such as those presented by Robbins and Freeman (much of Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption), Fassbender and Cunningham (central part of The Hunger) and Polanski and Depardieu (much of Tornatore's A Pure Formality). Total two-handers work best on stage or TV, and this is a worthwhile showcase for the talents of two mesmerising actors and a provocative author.