Bad Turn Worse
“Bad Turn Worse,” which was initially named “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” is one in a series of films about individuals who have overstayed their time in dangerous, desperate locations. Simon and Zeke Hawkins’ assured thriller opens with a mention of Jim Thompson by name and tells a tale that would have impressed even Thompson himself for its deceptive simplicity.
“Bad Turn Worse” deserves to be compared with Thompson at its best, as it features constantly dim lighting, cinematography that conveys what seems like suffocating heat, and characters stuck in criminal quicksand. It’s an intriguing film that has some narrative sag in the middle but is worth watching for its confident opening and closing acts.
Bobby (Jeremy Allen White from “Shameless”) and Sue (Mackenzie Davis from “Halt and Catch Fire”) are leaving the nondescript town where they were raised somewhere in Texas on their way to college. They’re ditching Sue’s meathead boyfriend B.J. (Logan Huffman). On one last night together, B.J. decides the trio should go out with a bang. He funds the partying by robbing his idiot boss Giff’s (Mark Pellegrino) safe after realizing everything his PIN number, the combination to his office is based on a variation of his favorite number: 69. B.J., who doesn’t think before he acts and severely underestimates the malevolence lurking inside his employer’s heart, is just your average testosterone-fueled manchild.
The next day Bobby and B.J. come to work only to find Giff repeatedly kicking the Mexican employee he thinks robbed him. In an attempt to stop the violence, Bobby announces that he took the money protecting B.J., who foolishly thinks this will make things right now that he’s confessed and Giff informs Bobby that repayment requires him pulling off an even bigger robbery for crime lord Big Red, who launders money through Giff’s business. Obviously this can’t end well.
“Bad Turn Worse” builds dread from clearly defined feelings like desperation or jealousy; BJ lashes out at two friends abandoning him against nothing but inevitable path towards his asshole employer’s life amidst desolate Texan landscape (whereas Bobby becomes Giff becomes Big Red). Southern Dutch’s script works because we feel B.J.’s emotion behind BJ lashing out at two smart people leaving him behind forevermore since long ago when they were still kids so much smarter than everyone else around them including their stupid violent high school buddies turned adult losers whose lives will never amount anything more than sad stories told over drinks at dive bars after midnight while crying into bourbon sodas garnished with lime wedges until dawn breaks over small towns across America where dreams go die every day without fail year round eternally ad infinitum amen hallelujah holy shit what happened my life.
White, Davis and Pellegrino are balanced by Huffman’s performance. Thompson would have loved the young star of ‘Shameless’, who has all sunken and sleepy eyes that disguise a mind always figuring out what to do next. Davis is a future star on the AMC hit, where she plays the girl who outgrew her small town upbringing through literature and intellectual exploration, and she is well-cast here as someone who should have gotten outta this place a long time ago.
And Pellegrino is fantastic here truly disturbing in his gleeful propensity for violence. Start with energy “Bad Turn Worse” wanted more dialogue driven scenes like the opening diner bit about Thompson and whether or not it should be called “Bacon & Egg” instead of plural if you only have one egg so it’s bound to sag a little when the robbery plotting kicks in.
It often feels like they are too much discussing plot intricacies when character development would have helped more. In a disturbing scene that reveals Giff’s insane depth, Hawkins reclaim film energy and during final scenes of inevitable double and triple crosses. Just like in best work by Thompson, characters and their fates are taken seriously in “Bad Turn Worse”. And its achievement is that so do we.
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