“When a dog goes bad and bites someone, you have two choices, chain it up… or put it down.”
Directed by: Jim Mickle
Cast: Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, Don Johnson, Vinessa Shaw, Nick Damici, Wyatt Russell
The H-Bomb: The life of family man, Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall), is forever changed late one evening when he hears the sounds of an intruder breaking into his home. Fearing for the safety of his wife, Ann (Vinessa Shaw), and young son, Jordan (Brogan Hall), Richard nervously loads the revolver that belonged to his father, and quietly makes his way through the house. He encounters the intruder in the darkened living room, and when the stranger makes a sudden move, Richard’s gun goes off, and the man drops dead.
The local sheriff, Ray Price (Nick Damici), informs Richard that the man he shot was Freddy Russell, a wanted felon and all around lowlife that the world is better off without. Despite the Sheriff’s assurances that he has nothing to worry about, Richard is deeply rattled by the fact that he has taken a life. This feeling is amplified as word spreads through the small Texas town in which he lives, with people giving him sideways looks wherever he goes. As if Richard didn’t have enough on his mind, he’s then told that Freddy Russell had a father, Ben, a career criminal who was just recently paroled.
Looking for some sense of closure, Richard decides to swing by the cemetery as Freddy is being laid to rest, and finds himself face to face with Ben (Sam Shepard), who recognizes Richard from his photo in the newspaper. Richard makes a futile attempt at an apology, but Ben is less than receptive, and as he walks away, he makes a vaguely threatening comment about Richard’s son. It’s not threatening enough for the police to do anything about it, though it is enough of a threat for Richard to surmise that Ben just might have every intention of harming his child.
And if you think you know where the story is going from there, it pleases me to say you couldn’t be more wrong. That is what is so fantastic about Cold in July, a criminally overlooked 2014 thriller from director Jim Mickle (Stake Land), just when it looks like it’s going in one direction, it takes a sharp left turn and goes in another. And just when it seems obvious where it’s going from there, it turns yet again, and takes us to places that are as unexpected as they are twisted and downright ruthless.
The plot description above only covers roughly the first half hour, beyond that, all bets are off. There is no telling where this twist-laden tale it will take us, or what nasty card it has hidden up its sleeve. So many crime yarns nowadays are just so by-the-numbers, that I relish that rare feeling of not knowing what might come next. The script, by director Mickle and co-star Damici, adapted from a novel by Joe. R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep), careens wildly off the beaten path and ventures down some pretty dark avenues as its plot thickens.
Obviously, specifics must be avoided, because Cold in July is a film that is best experienced completely blind. I should warn you, though, that things turn genuinely grim and disturbing, so much so that even the most battle hardened moviegoer will squirm in disgust. Make no mistake, it’s not merely for shock value. There are greater themes that are touched upon here; family, loyalty, justice, redemption, and plain old good vs. evil. What would you do if you found out someone close to you, someone tied to you by blood, was genuinely evil? Again, I apologize for the vagueness, but this really is a film people must simply see for themselves… because it is one of the best of the past year.
Reminiscent of recent rural noir flicks like No Country for Old Men and Blue Ruin, Cold in July carries a mean violent streak and an almost perverse sense of humor. Yeah, Lansdale once wrote about a mummy who would suck the souls out of the asses of the elderly in a Texas nursing home, but here he tells a far more brutal tale, against a much more realistic backdrop. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its stylish flourishes, though. Set in the 1980’s, the film’s score, by Jeff Grace, is an unsettling, synth-based number that is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s compositions from the era. Ryan Samul’s moody cinematography becomes increasingly stylized as the characters descend further into hell.
Hall, best known from TV’s Dexter, gives an effectively understated performance as Ben, an everyman who finds himself completely out of his depth. Ridden with guilt and terrified by the increasingly bizarre situation he finds himself in, Hall provides a lead we can identify with. I could’ve done without his pseudo-mullet, though. I know it’s supposed to be the 80’s and all, but Ben is the character we’re supposed to be emotionally invested in, and that thing made him look like a doofus. There are other ways of selling the period than saddling him with such a ridiculous haircut. But I digress. Shepard, looking as grizzled and mean as ever, is scary as the quietly intense Ben, a man determined to find the truth about his son, no matter where that might lead him.
Best of all is Don Johnson, who turns up about midway through the picture as Jim Bob, a cowboy private eye/pig farmer who sheds light on the situation, and brings some much needed levity to the picture. He’s a flamboyant shit-kicker, and Johnson plays him with gusto, giving what is perhaps the performance of his career. His best moments are when he tries to get his very 80’s car phone to work, even commenting on how snazzy and high tech it is, and when he beats down a Mexican giant who makes the mistake of crossing him. What’s key, though, is that his often comic performance doesn’t undermine the dark tone of the piece, as it easily could have. Johnson is fucking great here, folks, and he nearly walks away with the whole damn movie.
He is, though, merely one of many reasons to see Cold in July. It may start as a seemingly straight forward cat-and-mouse, Cape Fear-like revenge flick, but it soon transforms into an utterly engrossing mystery with suspense sequences so intense, and story turns so shocking, I was constantly enthralled. The tension builds to a fever pitch as Ben learns more about who broke into his house that fateful night, and then finally explodes in a bloodbath that would make Peckinpah proud. With films like Blue Ruin, Nightcrawler, and Gone Girl, 2014 saw some fantastic thrillers, and Cold in July stands right alongside those as being one of the best of the lot. I took a chance on this savage slice of pulp fiction, knowing next-to-nada going in, and now I emphatically urge you do the same.
