VIOLENT ENDS – Review by Nadine Whitney
Violent Ends, John-Michael Powell’s neo-western cum Southern Gothic cum revenge crime thriller is distinctly formulaic. In a small town in the Ozarks which was hit hard by financial woes for the farmers of the area, the Frost family dominated the river-based drug smuggling operations in Arkansas in the 1980s. Three brothers: Donny (Bruce McKinnon), Walt (Ray McKinnon), and Ray (Matt Riedy) all vied for complete control of the operation leading to a schism where Walt took the meth market and Donny the cocaine. Ray was taken off the chess board when he ended up serving a long prison sentence. Bad blood is never forgotten nor cleansed, and the next generation continues the crime legacy.
That is, with the exception of Lucas Frost (Billy Magnussen) who refused any involvement and with the advent of his upcoming nuptials with his charming and lively girlfriend Emma (Alexandra Shipp) informs his father Ray that he will be leaving the town to ensure his own children a brought up without the rot that is the Frost clan. Luke also attempts to keep his older half-brother Tucker Whitehead (Nick Stahl) clear of the family despite Tuck’s past where he worked for them and was an addict. The reach of the Frost family is inescapable: even Darlene (Kate Burton) their mother and also the Deputy Sheriff was involved with them enough to have a son with Ray.
The tropes of small-town family rivalries and the long shadows of the sins of the father are ingrained in the cinematic consciousness. There are few surprises to be gleaned from the formula, and Powell doesn’t appear to be creating a radical departure from the known formula. So, given that he is working within well-trod territory, the question becomes how well he succeeds in crafting character and mood. The answer is sometimes merely adequately, but at other times, excellently.
A “wrong place at the wrong time” situation arises when Emma is delivering checks to a local scrapyard and an armed robbery takes place. Emma is accidentally shot and killed while Luke is waiting outside. One of the robbers takes his mask off allowing Luke to see that it is his cousin, Eli (son of Walt). Immediately Luke’s dreams of a life with Emma unencumbered by the Frost legacy are dashed. Despite Darlene’s warnings to stay away and let the police handle the murder, Luke refuses to do nothing as too many in the town have done and takes on “opening a can of worms” regardless of the potential violent end he will experience.
Although Magnussen and Stahl are good—especially when they are interacting with each other—there is one performance that is outstanding. James Badge Dale plays Walt’s eldest son Sid. The cold menace he radiates tends to eclipse his scene partners. Dale has Sid’s every mannerism exude the confidence of a sadist who genuinely enjoys feeling the blood on his hands and often chooses a close kill via a knife when guns are the primary weapon. Sid Frost is the kind of man who would pour petrol over a crowded room and light the match with him standing inside it so he could watch the terror on the faces of others. Everyone is expendable, but he enjoys the masquerade that his younger brother Eli and his father Walt are men he has fealty to.
Powell, who also wrote the screenplay, has a robust sense of character despite overstuffing the film with too many Frosts which, although not confusing, becomes a case of which grisly death is next to telegraph “gritty rawness.” The film tends to be more chilling and involving during the charged conversations between the bitter fruit of a poisoned family tree than most of its actual violence.
The setting and overall mood of Violent Ends is its greatest asset. Isolated cabins and houses that exist as relics where characters trap themselves in a ruined version of their once better lives. Nature and forests that are both beautiful and spaces of death help to sustain the Gothic flourishes as much as weather beaten businesses where people are barely holding on. A neon-lit hidden bar where Walt conducts his business, or a near abandoned factory turned drug port. Powell trusts the audience to perceive the effects of economic downturn and the entropic pull that Luke was escaping when Emma caused a glow of beautiful promise.
Violent Ends doesn’t often transcend violent and downbeat genre trappings. When it does the spark of John-Michael Powell’s emerging strengths as a filmmaker is evident and that spark is worth paying attention to.
