RLJE Films
Once upon a time in 2008, there was a movie called Taken which starred a middle-aged man as a surprising badass. And ever since then we’ve gotten plenty more, some of which, like John Wick or Nobody, are fun and sometimes great and others, obvious copycats without any real depth or cleverness. Simply juxtaposing the unassuming man with actual badassery isn’t inherently worth a look, or at least not anymore — now you need something more.
South of Heaven comes from director Aharon Keshales who co-wrote it with Navot Papushado and Kai Mark and it’s hard to say what sort of movie it even truly is. We focus mainly on Jimmy (Jason Sudeikis) who has just been paroled for a violent crime (armed robbery) because his wife Annie (Evangeline Lilly) has terminal lung cancer. For a while, the movie focuses on a sort of ‘isn’t it sweet despite things’ meandering, as the other plot begins to creep in.
Jimmy’s over-the-top parole officer Schmidt (Shea Wigham), who is bizarrely caricaturish and corrupt compared to everyone else, is constantly on Jimmy’s case. But after he forces Jimmy into messing around with something ‘crime adjacent’, the plot shifts again to focus on the new sorta protagonist Whit Price (Mike Colter) who is a local crime boss and (I think?) widower with son Tommy (Thaddeus J. Mixon).
The movie nearly immediately makes Whit into an overly sympathetic anti-hero of sorts because of his soft-spoken demeanor and single dad status. But he is a local crime boss right? The movie is odd about this, which becomes a problem when Jimmy and Whit finally come at odds because it starts by being sympathetic to both and then suddenly switches to just Jimmy — but not really for any reason other than luck and accidents.
There are two major plot points about car accidents, both of which are used to avoid actual personal choices and foment conflict — meaning both are indicative of many of the weird, often lazy storytelling decisions made in the script. The movie also doesn’t really write its characters with any dialogue that is elevated past cliché and platitude for the most part, relying heavily on the acting of the leads.
In the final few scenes of the movie, it’s suddenly a bizarre John Wick revenge tale and it’s so rushed and jarring that it’s almost entirely unbelievable. I don’t blame any of the main actors, who have all done great things elsewhere, but it is odd that they play things so levelheaded and small when Schmidt is played so loud and brazen (again, not a knock on the actor, just a weird choice from a filmmaking perspective).
Honestly, if you want to see a recent movie that handles this trope well, Nobody was a lot of fun despite its quite simplistic story. I feel like this movie really wanted to be a different take on this concept, but it’s really the same thing — a crime oriented unassuming white dude in his 40s or 50s has to take unusual revenge, because of his family, with surprising skills. I suppose I was hoping for something a lot better.
South of Heaven has a run time of 2 hours and is not rated.
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