We open with a scene that is rather jarring, intentionally vague, and, ultimately, quite haunting in the way it says so much with simple things like a gunshot and a spatter of blood. In the next scene, we learn whose suicide we’ve just witnessed, and the proceeding 90 minutes reveal to us the cobweb of tragedy that results from that gunshot. It disrupts lives, ends relationships, forges new and terrifying alliances that eventually fracture, and leads, inexorably, to a burst of climactic violence that it fully earns. There’s a solid lead performance by the great character actor Scoot McNairy, and director Rod Blackhurst displays some genuine skill in the staging and execution. Despite all this, Blood for Dust never quite comes together, perhaps because, despite the narrative ingenuity, the details of the story are the stuff of pure formula, woven together in one note.
This is yet another movie starring a troubled and troubling protagonist whose desperation to protect himself leads to resounding questions about the state of his soul. One supposes that the small innovation here — the protagonist is a humble traveling salesman instead of something more ambitious — is screenwriter David Ebeltoft’s way of establishing McNairy’s Cliff as a thoroughly ordinary guy, if not for the criminal activity in which he is all too happy to engage when he feels the straits have grown requisitely dire. That opening suicide, for instance, is committed by his best and perhaps only friend in the entire world, but it doesn’t happen for the reason we might anticipate.
We could guess, after learning of it, that it was in response to an affair between Cliff and the dead man’s widow (Amber Rose Mason), but it turns out that Cliff was a poor friend in many more ways than just that. It’s bad enough that Cliff turned to another woman instead of his own wife, Amy (Nora Zehetner), while their son is in the hospital. It quickly becomes clear, if you haven’t figured it out yet, that Cliff is a weasel. He’s not a good or virtuous man, but he also believes that he’s simply doing what he needs to do to survive. McNairy is quite good at shifting between modes of pathetic pitifulness and moral cowardice, and the best moments in the film are when we get to watch him do the hard work of somehow making this mess of a man at least a little sympathetic.
In a movie with a stronger foundation, this compelling performance could go a long way, but it winds up overshadowing everything else, especially since the movie’s ultimate interest is in concocting a reason for Cliff to wield a gun in self-defense. He has another supposed friend, Ricky (Kit Harington), whose past includes the same shady business that caused friction between Cliff and the dead man. Ricky is now a dealer of arms and drugs, and when he includes crime boss John (Josh Lucas) and one of his goons (Ethan Suplee) in a plan to run more drugs and guns, it all inevitably goes awry.
This side of the plot is far less interesting than simply observing Cliff in his natural habitat of minor deceptions and boiling guilt as he deals with the revelations surrounding the extent of his lies. In the end, Blood for Dust caves to its simpler pleasures with a big shootout, which isn’t useful to or insightful about any of its characters.
Photo courtesy of The Avenue
The post Blood for Dust appeared first on Spectrum Culture.