“…streamlined structure, down-and-dirty setting and highly desperate lead character has the look and emotional explosions of a potboiler.”
Overall, the reasoning behind the brazen holdup and the standoff that followed it has a few flaws, and the less attention drawn to the cracks in the foundation the better. After some intense gunplay, Aaron still believes that only one policeman is outside his little hideaway when it’s a virtual certainty that the entire state militia is lurking about, locked and loaded. In another sequence, he pulls off a diversion using his cell phone voice recorder that’s even harder to swallow. And somehow, he believes he can convey the robbery loot that he’s holding to another party without alerting the police to it. Keep dreaming.
In This Gray Place, with its streamlined structure, down-and-dirty setting and highly desperate lead character have the look and emotional explosions of a potboiler. But some slips in logic and incohesive shifts in tone prevent it from being totally convincing. As the protagonist finds out, it’s easy to plot a caper, but tough to get the big payoff you were looking for.
In This Gray Place (2018) Directed by R.D. Womack II. Written by Starring Aleksander Ristic, Marcus Johns, Angela Nordeng, Phil LaMarr, Nikolay Moss. In This Gray Place made its West Coast Premiere at the 2018 Dances With Films.
4.9 out of 10
