Cold in July

How the cinema loves twists: that moment when the plot, and expectation, is turned on its head and the previously hushed audience emits an extended, ‘Oooooh’.

But how many twists do you need? One? Two? A dozen? If proof were required that you can have too many, this otherwise reasonably entertaining thriller is it. In fact, the script’s determination to spin off on yet another trajectory every time the plot is just settling into place, ultimately is just tiresome, like a sat nav endlessly recalculating your route.

The film, adapted from a novel by Joe R Lansdale, opens in Texas, in the late 1980s. It’s the middle of the night and husband and father Richard Dane (played by Michael C Hall of Dexter fame) wakes to the sound of breaking glass. He rummages in a cupboard looking for a revolver (clearly, rarely used), tells his wife (an engaging Vinessa Shaw) to stay where she is, and nervously sets off along the corridor. In the living room, he confronts an intruder. He raises the gun, the clock strikes the hour and, accidentally, a shot is fired. The burglar is dead in a bloody heap.

The police don’t seem to mind: they claim to know the perp and put it down to plain old self-defence. Trouble is, the intruder’s father (a grizzled Sam Shepard) isn’t so forgiving. He has just been released from a lengthy spell in prison and before long is exacting his terrifying revenge.

So far, so good. But while this could have been an entertaining drama in itself, it is, in fact, merely the preamble for a far more complex tale involving the Dixie Mafia, police corruption, the Korean War, plenty of beer, an annoying postman, murder, people-smuggling, a deathly deep consideration of the father/son relationship and a very nasty video shop (warning: this is not a film for those of a nervous disposition).

Certainly, director Jim Mickle and his cast make a decent fist of navigating this increasingly contrived mystery. But there are almost as many loose ends by the end of the film as there are spent shell casings (and there are an awful lot of those).

Which is not to say that Cold In July is a poor film. In fact, there are plenty of memorable moments: a particularly dashing turn by Don Johnson as Stetson-wearing pig farmer and private dick, Jim Bob Luke; a captivating soundtrack by Jeff Grace, and glimmers of the same true grit that made the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men such a classic. It just adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

In the hands of HBO, which has made some of the most memorable TV series of recent times, including Boardwalk Empire, True Detective and Game Of Thrones, the premise could potentially have made 10 episodes of gripping television.

In one 110-minute film, however, it’s sadly just a case of too much, too soon.