Jim Mickle’s “Cold in July” was born in Sundance serendipity; after trying to get the film made for five years, Mickle met Michael C. Hall at a party at last year’s Sundance (where the director was presenting his cannibal horror movie “We Are What We Are”) and Hall agreed to star in this film, whose two halves are so different you might as well call it a double feature.
This bloody Texas noir begins with an ordinary working man, Richard (Hall) shooting an intruder he finds robbing his house late one night.
The cops discover that the dead man is a wanted felon, so no great loss, but Richard is heartsick about taking another man’s life, and unfortunately the burglar’s daddy has just gotten out of prison on parole.
We hold our breath until Mickle finally introduces the vengeful dad: He’s Sam Shepard, and he doesn’t look happy.
A “Cape Fear” situation ensues, with the ex-con menacing Richard and his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and young son, with Richard responding in resourceful ways. I found the early going utterly breathless as Mickle turns up the suspense, but then Don Johnson shows up and it’s as if a balloon has popped.
Johnson is a dandy private eye in a red convertible who gets a lot of well-earned laughs for his wry one-liners, but the case turns out to be a lot more complicated than it first appeared — complicated bordering on ridiculous, with a whole lot more bloodshed to come.
Johnson’s good ol’ boy Jim Bob turns out to be old friends with Shepard’s ex-con Russell, and the two of them plus Richard stumble on a much greater evil than the original burglar story.
At one point I used to read detective mysteries, but this movie (based on Joe R. Lansdale’s novel) made me remember why I gave them up: because too often they build on chance discoveries and/or preposterous coincidences (like a trunk that just happens to pop open at the wrong moment) to culminate in an almost absurd level of violence, with any early reminders of reality gleefully discarded and zero consequences for the protagonists.
Still, the film held my attention throughout and it’s worth seeing, though it’s basically a midnight movie.