Drive-By Review - Small Town Crime

 

Another movie that slipped under my radar that has everything I like in a movie.

• Crime
• Very flawed protagonist trying to reassemble his life
• Great cast
• Okay writing

I say okay writing because it's just that.  There's nothing memorable about the dialogue or the plot.  Which is good.  Sometimes simple plots and dialogue that can be easily spat out by a good cast are enough.  In this case, both are.

If the plot had been complicated, the movie would've been unwatchable outside of the cast.  They keep it grounded and the simplicity of the plot keeps it moving.  It's an above-average movie to discover on cable or, in my case, streaming.

The biggest weakness of the flick is the two hitmen.  They're not interesting and, for professional killers, they're dumb.  But they're not bumbling dumb.  They're just stupid.  Yet they're not supposed to be, at least the way the film tries to sell them. 

In my opinion, they shouldn't have spoken at all.  It would have stuck to the overall point of the movie; small simple crimes that fall quickly into extreme outcomes.  It would have made them a helluva lot more interesting, too.  All they had to be were mysterious vessels of murder.  

This is my long way of saying they were overwritten.

Also, the parents of the first murder victim had about as much charm as empty chairs.  

Anyway, at about 90 minutes, it's a good watch.

Demon and Guardian Updates

If you're wondering where links and images to my books Demon and Guardian have gone, well, they've been removed for now.

Why?

Because they are no longer for sale.  You see, the rights to both have reverted back to me.  So, the e-books and paperbacks by the original publisher are no longer available.

That doesn't mean new versions won't be available in the future.  It just means they're not available right now.

If you're a publisher and are interested, you can always drop me a line.

More to follow...

Drive-By Review: Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty

 

If you're following the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh in South Carolina, you've already got a hint of what this docuseries is about.  I wasn't following the trial and had no idea what to expect since I was completely in the dark on this one.

What I came away with is:

• Fraud and Corruption
• Dark family history of fraud and corruption
• Fraud and Corruption
• Dark family history of potential murder to fully exploit perpetuated fraud
• Murder, Murder, Murder
• And a bunch of other stuff hinted at but not really explored

In short, it's a fucked up family that's been allowed to wield way too much power and influence.  This pretty much happens everywhere where families have been entrenched for a long time.  I'm not saying murder and fraud to this level are always involved.  But if you've lived somewhere long enough, you start to get the feel of the families that have the most influence and, somehow, someone in their family always seems to get away with murder.

What's different about this one is the spoiled kid who was going to get away with murder might have been murdered by his own dad.

Yeah, fucked up.

What I didn't get and what isn't really explored is why the dad may be going out of his way to protect an older brother who also may have been involved in a different murder but was so willing to kill the youngest son and his wife.  The motive doesn't add up, at least how it's presented in this series.

The younger son may have committed drunken boating manslaughter and may have helped cover up the "accident" of another person for insurance money.  The older son was being pointed at for potential involvement in beating a gay schoolmate to death.  The latter seems way worse, all things considered.  Why protect him but murder the other?  Not defending murder.  But we're supposed to believe the dad decided in an opioid haze that the younger son and wife had to die to protect himself?

In short, the series doesn't do a very good job connecting things.  It does do a good job presenting all the misdeeds this family may be tied to.

That being said, it's interesting.  If there were some occult aspects introduced, it'd be like a non-fiction True Detective season.