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How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 10 August 2014
This article is a review of WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE a.k.a. BAD TURN WORSE. |
“You have no idea what I had to do to get this,” B.J. (Logan Huffman) to Sue (Mackenzie Davis) and Bobby (Jeremy Allen White)
Self-consciously launching into a diner conversation as the first spoken words, between two teens about to head off to university, on literature and plotting, might have had the alarm bells clanging had they not mentioned author Jim Thompson. You've read 'The Getaway' right? One of the all-time stunners of crime fiction. Sue (Davis – THAT AWKWARD MOMENT) and Bobby (White - AFTERSCHOOL) had me there with the observational admiration for the unexpected. Mentioning Thompson means bringing you filmmaking A game. WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE had promise, then opted for the ultra conventional.
Self-consciously launching into a diner conversation as the first spoken words, between two teens about to head off to university, on literature and plotting, might have had the alarm bells clanging had they not mentioned author Jim Thompson. You've read 'The Getaway' right? One of the all-time stunners of crime fiction. Sue (Davis – THAT AWKWARD MOMENT) and Bobby (White - AFTERSCHOOL) had me there with the observational admiration for the unexpected. Mentioning Thompson means bringing you filmmaking A game. WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE had promise, then opted for the ultra conventional.
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A Texas backwater, teens pulled into an overwhelming adult world of illegality and violence had the makings of gripping, gritty, almost Kubrickian/Finchian individuals railing against stratospheric odds. Timelessly (in a modern sense), it is hard to place. No one brandishes a mobile phone; only the utility vehicles make it the present. A romantic and friendship triangle slowly emerges. Bobby and B.J. are best beds, Sue is the squeeze of the latter, and unwisely the heart wants what the heart wants for another physical coupling. Bobby and Sue are leaving imminently for university, relief - not even close to be hidden - at the escape from a dead end LAST PICTURE SHOW type town.
Envy, resentment, betrayal rear up in B.J., so much so that the prologue has him robbing his own psychotic boss Giff (Mark Pellegrino – ELLIE PARKER). You've read graphic novel A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE? Had B.J. done so, he might have realised such larceny will result in a world of discomfort. Of course, Giff finds out, and his sadism 101 credentials are established by formula - torture, execution.
Rather than terminate their existence, Giff coerces our trio into a darker robbery scheme. Giff's boss, local kingpin Big Red (William Devane – ROLLING THUNDER), is the target. Moving up the food chain, as opposed to rinsing out the weaker, has an agreeable PAYBACK daring.
From pre-freshman innocence to corpse disposal and underworld infiltration had one engaged in the first half. Shame then, that the menace through dwindling options is jettisoned for the plot of least resistance. The last line has a ring of smugness not earned.
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