In the last decade, a modern day gold rush broke out in the town of Williston, N.D.. Oil was found. With that oil came jobs, and with those jobs came thousands of men from across the country and the entire globe – many with different patchy backgrounds, but all hungry and desperate. They all want the same thing – not merely a job, but a fresh start, an escape from past mistakes and a place to plant a flag and raise a family. That’s what Williston means to them all.

The only problem? Tiny Williston isn’t ready to be a boomtown, neither its residents nor its infrastructure. The city doesn’t have the room for all of the homeless men coming to town looking for employment, stuck living out of their cars or wherever they can find room. That alone annoys the locals – many of whom view the new arrivals as an ever-growing invasive species, a constant swarm of locusts – but even more concerning are the criminal records coming in tow.

At merely face value, the documentary "The Overnighters" – which shows at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 9:30 p.m. at the Downer Theatre – has a terrific story to tell. In a modest North Dakota town, writer-director Jesse Moss finds a classic Great Depression tale – about the American dream and American reality smashing into one another, leaving broken people in its quietly explosive aftermath – remodeled for modern times.

Even better, however, is the man "The Overnighters" finds at the center of the conflict: Williston pastor Jay Reinke, who becomes one of the most fascinating characters of 2014.

Watching his town quickly overcome by stragglers, Reinke decides to do what he believes is the right, moral thing: He turns his church into essentially a homeless shelter, letting the job searchers make camp with his floor space and in the parking lot until they can find employment and their footing.

It’s an incredibly bold act of generosity, but as Reinke soon finds out, doing the right thing isn’t as simple as just doing the right thing. The problems start small, with complaints about the men leaving a mess in the church, the lot and the whole town. As more men come in and more is revealed about them, however, Reinke and his family become under fire for essentially harboring men with criminal records and registered sex offenders – including one man in his own house.

On one level, Reinke’s actions seem noble and brave. He’s a man literally practicing what he preaches, offering up the plentiful space that he has to those who in many cases have nothing and attempting to make something good out of a bad situation. Watching Reinke gently defend his Overnighters program in town hall meetings, handing out pamphlets to angrily barking residents, showing kindness to his grizzled wards and even dorkily getting them to do the Hokey Pokey, it’s hard to root against him. He’s like a real-life Ned Flanders, a relentless do-gooder trying to help his fellow man and a little scripture passage to back up his mission. After all, he’s doing the right thing … right?

Reinke may be breathtakingly generous and compassionate, but his actions are just as breathtakingly naïve. He’s blind to his fellow citizens’ complaints and equally blind to the fact that some of the men are taking advantage of his seemingly endless reserve of understanding and generosity. Even Reinke admits he might not be able to say no, even at the cost of his family, his job and his community. The odds are good the audience will want to both slap him and shake his hand over the course of the film.

"The Overnighters" gives no easy answers, as there are none to find in this morally complicated battle for a town’s soul and a man’s soul. Reinke is both a figure of amazing compassion and a figure of appallingly little responsibility. Though the film focuses on Reinke, several overnighters are weaved into the story as well, some as noble as others are irresponsible and vindictive. 

Still, it’s not a story about heroes and villains. Instead, it’s an American tragedy about the tragically thin, nebulous line between right and wrong, and about desperate men trying to make their mark and shape their world, whether it be through a good job or good deeds.

While "The Overnighters" craftily unravels the story, slowly gathering evidence and little details on each side of the situation, Moss maintains the film’s human core. There’s drama in the story, but also humor and genuine, complex characters – people that the audience empathizes with even when they’re enraging.

The film’s only misstep comes right near the end, with a big revelation concerning Reinke that seems out of place, like a very important sidenote. It’s certainly relevant, especially since Reinke’s the focus of the film, but it feels awkwardly stapled to the end as though Moss was unsure how to tie it in with everything else.

Other than that, "The Overnighters" is fascinatingly complex documentary about the grounding of the American dream in a city where it was supposed to soar. 

"The Overnighters": ***1/2