There’s a corner of America that likes its murder mysteries convoluted and its detectives gathering all the suspects in a drawing room to go through them, one by one, in unmasking “The Real Killer.” But they probably wouldn’t appreciate the idea that a thriller titled “Hayseed” was tailor-made for them.
I mean, it climaxes with a tedious, “process of elimination” gathering of the suspects in a sanctuary, not a drawing room, doggone it.
This indie whodunit is about a dead pastor, lazy local police rushing to an “accident” conclusion, an ex-cop insurance investigator and the one person in town who wants this guy to not rush to judgement because she’s sure the pastor was murdered.
She’s the one who stands to inherit his fortune, for Pete’s sake.
“Hayseed” is an amiable but fatally low-energy and over-complicated mystery that benefits from a droll, laid-back turn by veteran character actor (“American Psycho”) and occasional lead (“Evenhand”) Bill Sage, who dons a trench coat and endures digs about dressing the stereotypical “part” as he lazes through sleepy Emmaus, Michigan, where Rev. Dowding (Peter Carey) turned up bled-out and drowned in the Emmaus Holy Church baptismal.
“It’s a slip-and-fall, a tragedy,” the boyish State Policeman Kyle (Kyle Jurassic) intones.
But ex-detective Leo Hobbins has bosses, and they want to make certain it wasn’t a suicide because being an insurance company, they’d rather not pay out.
First time feature writer-director Travis Burgess treat us to an endless “meet all (not really) the suspects” series of interviews with church staff, congregants and business associates, a “formality” Hobbins insists on, but an annoyance to some of those folks and a deathly drag on a movie’s opening act, even if it is another “whodunit” convention, even if it is edited down into a sort of montage.
It is the pastor’s go-to assistant Darlene (Ismenia Mendes) who stands to inherit the reverand’s home and who called the insurance company in. She’s sure somebody killed him.
Who? Maybe a parishioner (Kathryn Morris of TV’s “Cold Case”) jealous of the pastor’s trust in Darlene. Perhaps her dizzy waitress daughter (Marta Piekarz) knows something? The banker/real estate couple (Amy Hargreaves, Nolan North)?
Young and sketchy groundskeeper “Duck” (Jack Falahee) seems a likelier suspect than the aged, deaf organist (David Luther Glover).
Secret relationships, mysterious “meetings” the night before and the Reverand’s unsavory “secret” figure into all this.
Hobbins thinks the cops got it right until he realizes how easy it would be for these small-towners to get it wrong. So he settles in at the diner and with Darlene egging him on, starts asking questions.
“Humor me,” he says.
There’s enough here that a 75-80 minute version of this pokey picture might have worked, played or simply come off.
The picture’s title is a bit of a misnomer. We expect more examples of “hayseeds,” and while a few folks are quirky eccentrics, nobody adds up to a laugh-out-loud clueless clown or a “sage” in small town sheep’s clothing. That’s kind of a promise that this title makes. “Local color” is sorely lacking.
Sage is a steady presence at the heart of it. But Burgess switches points of view to throw us off, glibly overdoes the few flashes of violence, entangles characters in unexpected romances and withholds details that would allow the viewer to keep up, come to our own conclusion or, you know, stay interested.
Rating: unrated, violence
Cast: Bill Sage, Ismenia Mendes, Kathryn Morris, Marta Piekarz, Peter Carey, Caitlin Carver, Kyle Jurassic and Jack Falahee
Credits: Scripted and directed by Traviss Burgess. A Good Deeds Entertainment release.
Running time: 1:45
