Screenwriter Evan Ari Kelman wrote a script — “Barron’s Cove” — that made “The Black List,” a survey of studio folks who vote on the “most liked” unproduced scripts they’ve read in a given year. In eventually making the sale of that script, Kelman angled to get himself a directing credit with this bleak tale of murder, corruption and a flawed and dangerous man’s hunt for justice for his murdered ten year old.
But that old maxim about lawyers who represent themselves in court springs to mind in this overwrought, cliched and melodramatic thriller that, if nothing else, makes you question the purpose of The Black List, when these are often scripts the surveyed execs’ studios took a pass on. For a reason.
“Bleak” is this picture’s byword, a tale that starts with three little boys, one tied to railroad tracks with a train coming. “Bleak” are the hopes for justice, when a political dynasty, utterly compromised police, construction racketeers and a raging/grieving father are involved.
But any promise the premise has, with its “Never trust the motives of politicians who ‘adopt’ boys” messaging and “Wow, they went there?” violence — against children, no less — is undercut by melodramatics, over-the-top performances, cliched characters and a script that maybe needed a fresh set of eyes directing it, not the fellow who was married to his words.
Garrett Hedlund hits spittle-spewing rage and rarely lets up as Caleb, a father who works as an “inspector” and enforcer for a construction supplies racket run by his mobster Uncle Benjy, naturally played with the usual Fu Manchu’d gusto by veteran B-movie heavy Stephen Lang.
Benjy makes Caleb late for a pickup for his weekend with his son. And that’s how young Barron ended up on those railroad tracks, in pieces.
Naturally, Caleb’s ex (Brittany Snow) blames him when they have to ID what’s left of the body. Naturally, she came out as a lesbian after they split.
The cops rush to call the death a suicide. Because one of the boys with Barron was the sinister blond moppet Ethan (Christian Convery), the adopted son of an unmarried local politico (Hamish Linklater) with eyes on continuing the family dynasty at the state level.
Caleb’s two-fisted, crowbar-assisted personal “investigation” ruffles many a feather. He won’t wait for his “connections inside” uncle to give him answers. Before we know it, he’s stormed into a school and run across tables in a crowded cafeteria to grab his suspect and make off with him.
Naturally, Caleb’s got Black friends who help him out. No, the first doesn’t know why he’s borrowing all these tools — blowtorch, ax — up at Barron’s Cove, where Caleb has the kid stashed. Naturally, the second helper can do field surgery on gunshot wounds when necessary.
Whatever the qualities of the script, a fresh set of eyes might have spared us all the “naturally” unsurprising and unlikely coincidences and cliches this narrative is built on.
Naturally, the kid is a self-assured punk — at 10 — with the wherewithal to bark “You think you’re scaring me?” when a blowtorch is lit to get answers out of him. The first time Caleb confronts him, the “monster” stuck out his tongue at him. Sure.
Naturally, the feigning-concern, self-absorbed politician hisses to the new detective on the force (Raúl Castillo), “Swear to me on your baby boy’s life” that he’ll “save” kidnapped Ethan. Naturally, the unconvincing adoptive father storms off before getting that promise.
Hedlund hits a few touching notes, in between the rages and the fights he must endure as cops and mobsters come for him and the boy.
“Anything I had to lose, I already lost,” is his explanation for his actions.
And there’s topicality in all this — the institutions we’ve lost faith in, the despicable things we’ve learned politicians are capable of, and get away with thanks to protect-the-powerful policing. If the cops are dirty enough, you can plant bombs in a cabin and they won’t even look for surviving components or evidence of that. Apparently.
But Kelman’s direction of his script highlights its more arch or even ludicrous/risible elements. The pacing is too sedate to give the narrative urgency and race past the clunkier moments. And the performances aren’t any more subtle than the sometimes absurd action beats.
Not every script that makes The Black List gets produced, and not every one produced shows the same promise those execs might have seen in the movie on the printed page.
Put “Barron’s Cove” in the column of a Black List miss, a script most passed on for reasons all-too-evident in the finished film, just not to the screenwriter who directed it.
Rating: R, graphic violence
Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Hamish Linklater, Christian Convery, Stephen Lang and Brittany Snow.
Credits: Scripted and directed by Evan Ari Kelman. A Well Go USA release.
Running time: 1:56
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