The late Roger Ebert swore by the “Stanton-Walsh rule.” He claimed no film featuring character actors Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmett Walsh could ever be entirely bad. Their presence could provide at least one bright spot in an otherwise dismal affair.
Stanton has left us now, though Walsh is still cranking out roles at 88. To replace at least the one missing half of this axiom, there’s no better candidate than Scoot McNairy. Not unlike Ebert’s favored faces, the sturdy, stolid supporting mainstay wears the everyday tragedy of time’s passage across his weary visage. There’s an unforced naturalism to any performance he gives. McNairy doesn’t feel like a character so much as someone we know who just wandered onto the screen.
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But, boy, “Blood for Dust” really does prove a tough strain on the viability of adding McNairy to such a rule. This vaguely defined crime drama set in snowy 1990s Montana requires him and the whole cast to do a significant amount of heavy lifting with their roles. They must cut everything whole cloth because the script stretches the terseness of these tough drug kingpins to the extreme.
Director Rod Blackhurst also does McNairy no favors by making him act primarily opposite Kit Harington. It’s not that the former “Game of Thrones” star is particularly outmatched on an acting skill level to McNairy. Harington’s jittery Ricky makes for a great narrative counterweight to McNairy’s embattled Cliff, a traveling AED salesman just trying to provide for his family. The two reconnecting from a past Cliff would rather forget makes sense, as does his joining Ricky in the cocaine trade from a moment of personal and financial desperation.
Long-time McNairy fans may think this scenario sounds familiar from an early breakout in 2012’s “Killing Them Softly.” But the bigger issue here is primarily one of optics. Harington just does not look like he fits in this world. His one grooming touch, a handlebar mustache, does not cut it. To paraphrase what Chris Kyle told Bradley Cooper before playing him in “American Sniper,” Harington needs to have something “knock some of the pretty off him.” In this world of gruff, grizzled men, the very appearance of Harington in the frame makes the believability immediately dissipate.
It’s not just McNairy with whom Harington clashes. “Blood for Dust” assembles a cast full of enough “that guy” types to rival a ‘70s gritty genre flick like “The Friends of Eddie Coyle.” They all look like they’ve seen things, and they wear the contradictions of a landscape shaped by capitalistic Christianity in the wrinkles on their face. One of the film’s highlights is simply giving people like Josh Lucas or Ethan Suplee the opportunity to just hold court in a scene. But because their characters’ arcs feel so perfunctory to the plot mechanics of the film, their triumphs ring hollower than they should.
It’s a shame that the screenplay, co-written by Blackhurst with David Ebeltoft, lacks this element. Individual sequences, like a garage shootout, are tautly edited and gripping to watch. It’s abundantly clear that Blackhurst knows what he’s doing behind the camera. The eerie, slow-push heavy cinematography with Justin Derry amps up the sense of imminent danger at any moment, as does Nick Bohun’s string-heavy score recalling Jonny Greenwood’s work on Paul Thomas Anderson films.
But when so disconnected from the characters, these centerpiece scenes just feel like a showreel for all involved. While visually and sonically accomplished, “Blood for Dust” struggles to overcome its dependence on two-bit Mamet dialogue and ham-handed attempts at allegory. “Getting your clients more money from guns and drugs, that’s just what this country needs,” someone quips at one fateful junction. Blackhurst should try connecting the narrative to his characters before trying to make it ladder up to the country at large. [C]
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