Feature debutant writer-director Shane Atkinson toys with a hapless cast of schemers and low-lifes in this neo-noir, featuring a scene-stealing Dylan Baker as a vexed hitman
Sadsack husbands, missing suitcases, devious strippers, destabilising conversations with hitmen doubling up as metaphysical emissaries: this hyperactively structured crime thriller lines up many of the usual noir suspects, but loves messing with them. Often scenes end with left-field segues, such as when a cocky PI suddenly finds his car towed by a couple of insolent cops. It’s not so much that the inhabitants of the Texan outpost of the title are caught in the genre’s meaningless existential whirlpool; rather, they’re being actively toyed with by some mischievous prankster deity (AKA debut director Shane Atkinson).
Just before his vehicle is impounded, Skip the detective (Steve Zahn) gives tragic spouse Ray (John Magaro) the skinny: his wife Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson) is keeping a regular motel appointment with another guy. Desperate to keep her sweet, Ray must find the money she wants to set up the beauty-salon solution to her limp life. So when he is mistakenly accosted in a parking lot by a sleazeball offering a bag of cash in return for offing a local lawyer, he sees both a financial opening and a chance to assert that he’s no pushover. The only problem is that Harry (Dylan Baker), the real hitman, is out there, and he is not only vexed at missing out on the job, but also from the Anton Chigurh school of properly “finishing” things.
