Writer-director Evan Ari Kelman’s impressively cast, handsomely shot, and piercingly scored crime drama Barron’s Cove should have been a winner. Instead, rather tragically, its plot devolves into B-movie camp, with each consecutive twist making less and less sense. The continuous imperilment of / violence against a minor evokes queasiness, and some of the acting borders on highfalutin. Too bad, as somewhere deep inside there, a dark and resonant story begs to be unleashed.
It starts off powerfully. An unimaginable tragedy sends small-time crook Caleb (Garrett Hedlund) into enraged despair: his son was run over by a train, tied to the rails. Caleb’s ex, Jackie (Brittany Snow), blames him for not picking the boy up from school. Caleb suspects Ethan (Christian Convery), the psychopathic son of a local corrupt politician, Lyle (Hamish Linklater).
Here’s when the train, pardon the analogy, derails. Caleb’s son’s death is ruled a suicide. Something inside Caleb snaps. “My son didn’t kill himself!” he howls, over and over. It only takes one piece of evidence – a child’s drawing – for him to take deranged action and kidnap Ethan in front of the boy’s entire school. Despite his uncle/employer/hoodlum Benji’s (Stephen Lang) direct warning, Caleb brings the evil little s**t to a cabin in the woods.
[L-R] Christian Convery as “Ethan” and Garrett Hedlund as “Caleb” in the Crime, Drama, Thriller BARRON’S COVE, a Well Go USA release. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
“An unimaginable tragedy sends small-time crook Caleb… into enraged despair.”
From here on, the aforementioned twists and turns abound, sinking the derailed train in a swamp of clichés, disbelief, and predictability. Kelman should’ve explored what drives these characters to these unspeakable acts, how politics can utterly strip off their humanity. He should’ve allowed his film and his characters room to breathe, to let the lingering feeling of grief and despair permeating the early frames build into something consequential.
Instead, the plot bulldozes onward, piling on the frustrating plot turns with nary a hint of weight, or humor, or light. Each character is more unlikable than the last. Linklater’s Lyle may just take the cake, playing a man so laughably irredeemable he quickly becomes a caricature. Lang’s Benji is a close second, the normally magnetic actor snarling his way maniacally through a role that could have used a bit more sensitivity. Hedlund’s grief-soaked lead performance becomes equally tiresome. I won’t even mention Convery’s cringeworthy showcase, as the poor kid is subjected to so much jeopardy it makes Linda Blair’s ordeals seem basic.
Kelman is adept at staging sequences. There are a few standouts that point to a film that could have been: a searing interrogation in jail, a tense, close escape from a cabin, a touching exchange here and there. Matthew Jensen, a seasoned pro, knows camera placements and lenses, and these moments are beautiful. Yet it’s stringing these sequences together that could use some work.
“Barron was the only light in my life,” Caleb yells at one point. “What am I now – just another dog in your army?” Barron’s Cove could have been a light in the current cinematic landscape, but instead, it’s just another dog in an army of duplicates. All the ingredients are there; the filmmaker should have dialed back on the spices.
"…should've explored what drives these characters to these unspeakable acts..."
