As far as thrillers go, all the foundations have already been written, tailored into films, rewritten for contemporary generations, damaged, smashed collectively in different genres, and so on. This doesn’t bode nicely for movies that are supposed to keep contained in the boundaries of the style, and don’t have any must shock audiences with absurd plots and narrative experimentation. Some movies are supposed to be easy. Such is the case of Rod Blackhurst‘s Blood for Dust, a small town thriller that’s straight impressed by the Coens universe, and tells a narrative that would simply happen in a extra sober model of the enduring administrators’ land of crime. Will Blood for Dust change you life? Absolutely not. It doesn’t must. It’s simply one other iteration of the rotten dynamics of working-class America because it faces the riskier escape from all the things that’s snowy, plain, boring and unsuccessful.
The movie tells the story of Cliff, a touring salesman who sells defibrillators for a residing. He has a household that he’s virtually ashamed to go to as a result of he’s not very profitable at his job. At least, he’s not making sufficient gross sales to present them what they deserve. Cliff’s previous isn’t darkish. It’s simply full of some sketchy characters that he needs would fade away.
But after an enormous downside with the corporate he works for, Cliff will get damaged. His spirit is being stomped by the truth of his circumstance. While he’s consuming in a bar, he meets with an previous pal. Ricky (Kit Harington in the perfect efficiency of his profession to this point) is shady, however is aware of Cliff sufficient to supply him a partnership in a gig. The job consists of smuggling stuff. When Cliff accepts, issues don’t go nicely, and by the point our bodies begin dropping, he’ll want he had stayed a boring salesman.
Scoot McNairy is the driving drive behind Blood for Dust. Forget all the things he’s executed previously, and even the secondary roles that made him a personality actor that you could confidently add to a film and he’ll comply. This is the perfect work of his profession. As Cliff, he’s actual, virtually too sincere, and utterly unstable. He wakes up when he shouldn’t, and begins a lifetime of false redemption that within the face of an actor like McNairy, seems fairly apparent.
Blackhurst’s course is linear. With no intentions however to finish a personality research that we’ve seen earlier than, however seldom on this planet of impartial cinema with sufficient gravitas to make a few of these roles the perfect you’ve ever seen for the actors. Josh Lucas additionally exhibits up as a menacing mobster, and Stephen Dorff has a brief function that we want would have been extra essential. Ethan Suplee completes the solid within the unrecognizable physique he has now, and performs a component that appears tailored for him. This is a movie about crime being dedicated via conversations, and realizations being the one gasoline that can drive Cliff to grow to be a darkish product of desperation.
Beautifully shot, Blood for Dust is a kind of movies that lingers for some time. The performances will keep in your thoughts. The face of Cliff discovering the calm after the storm, at the same time as a legal, is poetic sufficient to make you nod at Blackhurst’s method at making a criminal offense drama that feels unhappy as a result of there’s no different alternative.
My solely commentary? The sound mixing might be improved.
Film critic. Lover of all issues horror. Member of the OFCS. RT Approved Critic.