Feature | Lights, Camera, Action! – We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Movie Review)

By Freda Cooper 11.08.2014

Image for Feature | Lights, Camera, Action! – We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Movie Review)

We Gotta Get Out of This Place (UK Rating: 15)

Has Texas become the one of the crime hot spots of the world? This year's spate of noir thrillers set in the Lone Star state seems to point that way, and We Gotta Get Out of This Place looks like being the best of the bunch so far.

Exactly thirty years ago a noir thriller, boasting the tag-line "Dead in the heart of Texas," announced the arrival of the best known brothers in contemporary film-making: Joel and Ethan Coen. They can't have known what they started with Blood Simple, but, over the years, it's inspired a whole clutch of films in a similar vein, the latest of which is We Gotta Get Out of This Place (released in the UK on Friday, 15th August). Coincidentally, it also marks the arrival of another pair of director brothers, Simon and Zeke Hawkins.

Image for Feature | Lights, Camera, Action! – We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Movie Review)

On top of that, it is the third piece of Texas noir this year, the others being the gorily gothic Blue Ruin and the convoluted Cold in July. We Gotta Get Out of This Place steers a straighter, less bloody path and, unusually, puts three teenagers at the centre of the action. Two of them, Sue (Mackenzie Davis) and Bobby (Jeremy Allen White), are about to go to college, leaving their friend, the less academic B. J. (Logan Huffman) behind. However, he's determined to mark their departure in style, so he raids the safe at work to pay for it. Inevitably, his boss, the sociopathic Giff (Mark Pellegrino), isn't best pleased and beats up the man he believes is responsible - the security guard. To save him, Bobby confesses to the robbery, and then discovers that the money didn't belong to Giff in the first place. Murder, betrayal, and kidnap all follow.

Giff is one of nastiest villains to find his way onto the screen this year, and that's primarily down to a riveting performance from Mark Pellegrino. Without a single redeeming feature and with a real penchant for manipulative mind games, he's the most memorable character in the film. There's a section just over half way when he's off-screen and, although the action doesn't flag in his absence, he is most definitely missed.


 
It has to be said that the Hawkins brothers haven't done anything especially new with their Texan setting; it's bleak, flat and monotonous, punctuated by only the occasional building. The grainy camerawork reinforces this, alongside the subdued interiors shot in near-natural light, and who can blame the youngsters for wanting to leave the town? There's nothing there for them and it's their ambitions that drive the story forward, even if their methods are more than a little suspect. The three central characters, though, give the film a certain fresh feeling; unknown faces they may be, but they more than hold their own against more experienced performers. Mackenzie Davis as the academic Sue is the most interesting, giving the distinct impression of a chip or two of ice in her veins. If the worst comes to the worst, she's the most likely survivor of the lot.

She's also the mouthpiece for one of the film's major themes: nothing is ever what it seems. The thought is planted early on in the film when Sue quotes the line from a book, and it's threaded throughout the movie. The theory is never totally proved and this frees up the Hawkins boys to deliver some sharp twists and turns, and to keep a couple of secrets up their sleeves, which they reveal in their own good time.

Image for Feature | Lights, Camera, Action! – We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Movie Review)

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10
Like its predecessors this year - Cold in July and Blue Ruin - We Gotta Get Out of This Place owes much to the Coen brothers' debut film and marks out Simon and Zeke Hawkins as directors to watch for in the future. In the meantime, this is a more than watchable piece of noir set in the seedy underbelly of Texas. Sweaty, grimy, and tense, it also boasts one of the most compelling villains to grace the screen so far in 2014.

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