‘The Indian Runner’

Sean Penn’s 1991 writing and directing debut is a psychodrama so intensely personal that it is difficult to read or even experience as anything more than a not-quite-veiled commentary on his own life. Based loosely on Bruce Springsteen’s brooding song “Highway Patrolman,” it is a Vietnam-era parable of two Midwestern brothers--the local sheriff (David Morse, left) and the local hell-raiser (Viggo Mortensen)--dealing in their own ways with the collapse of their family. Although overly self-involved, Penn is surprisingly focused as a director (TMC Monday at 2:20 a.m.).