As thrillers go, “October Gale” is mostly effective but strangely distant. Reuniting with her “Cairo Time” writer/director Ruba Nadda, actress Patricia Clarkson makes a plausible transition to home defender, wielding a gun and selling suspicion with co-star Scott Speedman. However, “October Gale” takes a substantial amount of time to get going, with those early moments filled with a far more interesting examination of grief, making the picture a rare event where action isn’t entirely welcome, distracting from a far more satisfying examination of a broken heart. Credit to Nadda for the change in expectation, allowing her feature to step away from formula and reach the viewer in a different way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com