“Desperation Road” is a Southern Gothic tale of blood, family, a debt that may never be repaid and the debtor who is determined to change that.

Actress turned director Nadine Crocker’s cast gets the little things right as their director gets a few big things wrong in this story of small town crime, coincidence and the lingering ripples of a tragedy that throws one and all together in BFE, Mississippi.

The film, producers boast, was shot in a brisk 16 days in which a cast of seasoned pros — Garrett Hedlund, Mel Gibson and Willa Fitgerald of the “Scream” TV series and the new Netflix “House of Usher,” create hard lives they’ve lived, established relationships that we believe on screen and guilt and regrets we buy into.

And Crocker’s leaden, under-edited movie of a Michael Farris Smith novel sleepwalks us through those lives. It’s a slow-moving tragedy that never betrays the frantic pace of the production or gets up to speed at all. As Smith scripted it, did he refuse to slim this narrative down so that it plays in a way that holds our interest? Or does Crocker not get cutting for “pace” yet?

Fitzgerald plays a single mom scraping together enough money for a cheap motel by sex working the truckers who park outside. She’s in her late 20s and the mileage shows, but little Annalee (Pyper Braun) comes first.

A sexual shakedown by a local sheriff’s deputy turns deadly when she refuses to let herself be used by his “friends,” too. That’s when she gets his gun. And that’s when another movie dirty cop breathes his last.

On the lam and armed, a women’s shelter proves little refuge. She ends up carjacking a good’ol boy (Hedlund) at gunpoint.

Russell is fresh out of prison, and his return to town was accompanied by a beating. His dad (Gibson) figures ex-con or no, he needs a hunting rifle for protection. They’re not practical folks in this here corner of Mississippi.

Russell resolves to help this woman, who eventually reveals her name to be Maben.

“You don’t look like a killer to me,” he drawls. Where he’s been, “I seen plenty.”

He’ll have to keep that from his old buddy, Deputy Boyd (Woody McClain), maybe from his widowed Dad and Dad’s girlfriend Conseula (Paulina Gálvez) as well.

And he’ll have to steer even more clear of the vengeful, alcoholic Larry (Ryan Hurst), one of “the brothers” who beat him on his return and who plan to torment him to death, or so we gather.

Every actor in this picture makes the character feel lived in. Look at the way Fitzgerald scoops up young Miss Braun, a maternal connection from both that is credible from the start. Likewise, Gibson and Hedlund click as father and son, and Hurst shades his rage with layers of hurt and regret, a life unended by trauma years before.

But there’s no urgency to any of this. A cop-killer is on the loose, and the investigation isn’t that calling-all-cars/we-avenge-our-own emergency that reality and a hundred years of manhunt/womanhunt movies have taught us to expect. Maben’s in no mad rush to get away, and Russell is pretty laid back about everything he’s mixing himself up in.

That slack pacing gives us time to explore the dimensions of Larry’s pain and Russell’s guilt, but makes the tale’s coincidences stand out and lets impatience settle in.

Taking a pause for a bit of Mel Gibson theology may seem like a good idea.

“I got to believe we can be forgiven.”

And a few big moments happen. But Crocker dallies so much between them that we forget the stakes, as do the characters. “Desperation Road” staggers into “Slightly Inconvenienced Street,” and bores us to tears as it does.

Rating:R for some violence, sexual assault, language throughout, brief sexuality and nudity.

Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Willa Fitzgerald, Ryan Hurst, Woody McClain, Pyper Braun, Paulina Gálvez and Mel Gibson.

Credits: Nadine Crocker, scripted by Micheal Farris Smith. based on his novel. A Lionsgate release.

Running time: 1:52