00:00Look out, because Sean William Scott is a bad man who you don't want to get on the wrong side of the law with.
00:07Set in 2008, Scott plays state policeman Bobby Gaines,
00:10who goes undercover in the small town of Colt Lake, Tennessee, to investigate a murder.
00:15His unorthodox methods expose a drug ring, but local deputy Sam Evans, played by Johnny Simmons, doesn't trust Gaines.
00:23This darkly comic crime flick is the directorial debut of Michael DeLiberti,
00:27who also co-writes the script, and he previously wrote the Jesse Eisenberg comedy 30 Minutes or Less,
00:32and this feels in a similar vein.
00:35It also claims to be based on a true story, but I've tried to verify that and so far found very little,
00:41so I think that's mostly a Fargo thing, if you kind of catch my drift,
00:46especially since Colt Lake is a fictional setting.
00:50Scott's performance is definitely the central attraction,
00:52playing a hyper-aggressive cop who doesn't abide by proper procedure at all,
00:56threatening and assaulting suspects,
00:59and Scott's over-the-top intensity is amusing,
01:01but also quite threatening because he's genuinely unpredictable.
01:06His assertiveness certainly stands in stark contrast to a lazy and incompetent local police,
01:10including Rob Riggle's god-fearing sheriff,
01:13and the late Chance Padermo in his final film role as one of the deputies,
01:17who are so bad at their jobs that they fumble and play with their guns.
01:20It becomes this satire of masculinity with plentiful dick jokes,
01:24where Scott's shock and awe tactics could only be idolised by these idiots,
01:29because he's what they would want to be like,
01:31and while it isn't subtle, at one point Scott defiles the constitution,
01:36there is some funny moments.
01:38Where the story goes is quite heavily signposted and too obvious,
01:42and I felt that the movie doesn't take full advantage of the premise,
01:45feeling totally torn between wanting to be an outrageous comedy
01:48or pushing it further into becoming a darker thriller.
01:52Scott's volatile performance feels like it could have gone meaner and nastier,
01:57and his Mr. Woodcock co-star Ethan Soupley plays a drug lord mostly straight,
02:01aside from his banjo-playing sidekick.
02:04But the film's sympathies clearly lay with Simmons' real protagonist,
02:08whose family has lived in the town for generations,
02:10and genuinely wants to help bring it back to life.
02:13Simmons is pretty good being alternately envious and suspicious of his new partner,
02:18and wrestling with his morality, and trying to do the right thing.
02:22There's an earnestly soft heart under the cynicism.
02:25It probably needed a few more rewrites to get the best out of the themes and the material,
02:30but Scott's half-cocked macho antics makes this watchable,
02:34and it's a decent but undercooked first feature.
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