Small scale/high stakes variation on an old tale: robbers stepping accidentally out of their league when a bag of loot turns out to be big-time Mob money.* Smart, mean, suspenseful, funny, writer/director Jon Watts knows when to push and when to lay low as a pair of 10-yr-old buds stumble upon an unattended sheriff’s car in the middle of nowhere. Joy ride, anyone? What they don’t know is that cunningly villainous Sheriff Kevin Bacon may be six degrees of separation away from his vehicle, burying a body from a cocaine deal gone bad, but is soon returning to deal with body #2; still in the trunk when the boys drove off ten minutes ago . . . and not yet dead. Yikes! (Non-chronological time-line neatly tucked in here . . . along with our syntaxual error.) Multiple POVs and action arcs wonderfully teased out for us by Watts, purposefully leaving some suspense on the table for a ‘family friendly’ style, using old-school movie craftsmanship and vast differences in scale to tie story & character development to the SouthWest landscape. All accomplished without snarky putdown or attention-grabbing pandering jokes, trusting viewers to pick up on the film’s violent black humor & comic deliberation. Technically, less School of the Brothers Coen or Tarantino and more throwback to the patient organic slow-burn build-up of a Budd Boetticher. Why it even knows when to stop. Satisfying & fun.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In spite of a small gross on its $800,000 outlay, Watts leapt directly to SPIDERMAN and a 175 mill budget. (Apparently, money well spent in HOMECOMING - not seen here.) A similar financial bet now playing out as NOMADLAND’s Chloé Zhao jumps into the Marvel Universe on ETERNALS/’21.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Don Siegel twists the traditional Mob Money template in CHARLEY VARRICK/’73. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/05/charley-varrick-1973.html
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