Screenplay:
Dutch SouthernCinematography:
Jeff BiermanComposer:
Jonathan KeevilCast:
Mark Pellegrino, Jon Gries, Jeremy Allen White, William Devane, Logan Huffman, Mackenzie Davis, Tom DiMennaPlots(1)
Sue can't wait to get out of the deadend cotton mill town she's called home her whole life in South Texas. She's taking her passion for detective paperback fiction off to college where she'll be joined by close friend the wide-eyed Bobby. He has a crush on Sue but is unable to act upon it. That's because Bobby's best friend is BJ, Sue's boyfriend. Only BJ isn't going anywhere and he knows it. He has no college prospects. He'll be left behind. When BJ steals $20,000 from his dimwitted boss Griff to bankroll one last night out together with his friends, a poor Mexican employee is scapegoated and Bobby, looking to protect BJ, takes the blame. This only heightens a hopeless situation as Griff is soon demanding the trio heist the money that a gangster Big Red launders through Griff's business. Dutch Southern's screenplay is very much a homage to Oklahoma crime writer Jim Thompson and Bad Turn Worse, directed by siblings Simon and Zeke Hawkins, spirits in the oppressive mood of desert noir where characters too broke and out of ideas in a rundown environments abandoned by love and industry turn to crime as a salvation and find something much worse. They find each other. (Accent Film Entertainment)
(more)Reviews (2)
The ultimate hillbillies make problems and theorize on how to get out of those problems. They are usually not very successful, so they get more and more entangled in their mess. There are a few fairly good ideas though, including awesome music. The music is the only thing making an impression on me that lasted until the next day. The rest of it was just unremarkable.
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I was expecting something more, but calling this film a noir is really nonsense. It has a criminal plot, but neo-noir is something slightly different for me. The characters are not interesting or strong enough, there is just an effort to complicate the story. And this just didn't work for me. I didn't even want to finish watching it.
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