Small Town Crime (2017)

Short and effective. That's a quick summary for "Small Town Crime". The trailer puts it between "Three Billboards ...", as a recent example, and "Fargo" or anything else by the Coen brothers. It's indeed in the right area to classify it, but doesn't reach to any of the two above. Overall, however... not bad.

Mike Kendall is an ex-alcoholic cop who struggles to not find another job, and lives out of his unemployment stipend hoping to get back in the force. After a drinking night resulting in a sleepover on the open fields, on his way home he notices on the side of the road the body of a young girl seriously beaten. Unfortunately, she doesn't survive the first night in hospital, and neither leaves any clue on who brought her to that state. Since Mike doesn't really have something to fill the time with he decides to take the case as an unauthorized private investigator, despite his former colleagues insisting for him to stay away. The minus of the movie is that the "mistery" in the whole investigation gets revealed relatively quickly and what we're left with is a pretty simple story... so enough details.

What brings value to the movie are mainly the actors. John Hawkes makes a lead role here that's probably comparable with the one in "Winter's Bone", although playing a totally different character. Clifton Collins Jr., who's a latino actor, is cast as a pimp who struggles to show up as a sort of black gangsta, from his car to the way he talks. Robert Forster is an angry grandpa with a "high quality musket". And I really don't know who plays the main villain, but we have an overweight guy with thick eye glasses who's appearing as the ultimate assassin. Despite the obvious comic factor the cast brings, the movie is actually quite serious through its course. I guess it would've been even to dark and gritty if we wouldn't have had the characters in the cast... Too bad that the simple story brings it down. It's probably the perfect example of where the difference between a story and a script comes from = the dialogues are excellent. Besides that, I don't think we could've get a much better movie on this subject.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5