3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): LaRoy, Texas

2023, Shane Atkinson (feature debut) -- download

I guess critics can sometimes be gracious to new comers. If you look at the TomatoMeter on this, the critics gave it 100%. For a debut that doesn't have anything particularly impressive about it, I guess they were all just happy to see something done capably and of a different fare than they usually see? I am not even sure about that. A brief read through doesn't provide any concrete insight as to why  they liked it, just that they did. I guess it travels the dusty Coen Bros road enough for most?

Ray (John Magaro, Overlord) lives in LaRoy, Texas with his ex-beauty-queen wife Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson, Silver Lake), and works at the family owned hardware store run by his brother Junior (Matthew Del Negro, Teen Wolf). "Works at" -- yes, despite it being the family business, he just works there as floor manager. Also, Junior is fucking his wife. But Ray won't believe it, even when photographic evidence is brought to him by the Skip (Steve Zahn, Sahara) the local fool who styles himself a Private Detective. "Styles himself" -- yes, we are never sure he is a trained, license detective but tells everyone he is one, and yet doesn't seem to have any real clients, and he misspelled "detective" on his business card. 

Meanwhile, a hitman (Dylan Baker, Happiness) has arrived in town, but Ray parks in his "illicit meeting" parking spot moments before the actual hitman shows, leading to the client to mistake Ray for said hitman. Already emotionally unbalanced and chronically incapable of dealing with confrontation, he keeps the money and the hijinks ensue. Hijinks include Ray accidentally killing the man he was "hired" to kill, spawning a fevered investigation by the inept local police force. They also include Skip deciding this is the case he should be investigating, as in why was someone being hired to kill a local lawyer and what about the real hitman.

Ray is not exactly someone who is likeable -- he's the sad sack you almost feel sorry for, but not really. Skip is classic Steve Zahn, suffering from a great amount of Dunning-Kreuger, convinced he and Ray are now best buddies and on a great caper. The movie escalates... slowly, leading to some more deaths, including a rather surprising, unhappy ending. Everything is well told, well shot but not compelling enough to ever come back to me. I was hoping for just a wee bit more seedy, dusty, back-water Texas story telling...