Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Michael C. Hall, Sam Sheppard, Don Johnson, Vinessa Shaw, Wyatt Russell, Nick Damici, Brianda Agramonte, Lanny Flaherty, Ken Holmes, Kristin Griffith, Tim Lajcik, Rachel Zeiger-Haag, Joe Lanza, Laurent Rejto, Brogan Hall.
To take three different types of actor and mould them into one particular film style takes guts and careful consideration of near genius proportions. To do it whilst still retaining their trademark individuality is only to be considered epic. However take the three actors out of the equation and you are left with a film which does deliver but you are left feeling completely out of sorts with. Such is the brutality of the film, which for once is not violence for violence sake that it does tend to make the three lead parts almost ghost like as if they are blending into the world in which they have set out to right. Such is the problem when you merge talent such as Michael C. Hall, the great Sam Sheppard and the likeable Don Johnson in the film Cold In July.
Adapted from Joe R. Lansdale’s book of the same name, Cold In July sees the ramifications of America’s gun laws and the manipulation of arguably outdated practices when the weapon is left in the hands of the innocent, those that have no reason to use a gun except for the Government expression of self-defence. When a burglar breaks into the home of the Dane Family, led by Michael C. Hall, the chain of events that follows, with father, Sam Sheppard, looking for revenge for the death of his son at the hands of unwilling town hero Richard Dane.
At some point you do feel as though you could be watching Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum giving stellar performances once more in Cape Fear, then something changes, something else kicks in and the film takes a more sinister mood but with the slight degradation of cartoonish violence wrapped up in a very serious topic of abuse. The mantra seems to be in the latter half of the film one of, you can only kill what you created, as Sam Sheppard’s Russell ponders on the criminality he has spawned and his right to destroy the son that which has become a festering weeping pus filled sore on society.
The seemingly conscious look at American society, the land of the free to carry a gun and how one murder in self-defence can change a man to the point where the longer he holds the weapon in his hand, the more he gets used to discharging it can be seen all over Michael C. Hall’s face. It is a part that he painfully executes with ease and alongside the returning Don Johnson, far too long away from the big screen it seems, and Sam Sheppard, are three very big reasons to see this film. For the rest, for the remainder of the cast, for the pseudo-sexual relationship observation between gun law, violence, especially the deplorable act of violence against women and for the almost lacking in any type of sympathy for the characters in their predicament and finally the criminal act of there being no restorative justice against the police department. Well, all being equal…it’s a good film that will get you through a couple of hours but it won’t stretch you in any way shape or form.
Cold In July, a Texas Massacre just about avoided by the acting talent of its three main men!
Ian D. Hall