Cold In July (2014) Movie Review

The film is also a deft gear-shifter in the sense that you start out with one story and end up nowhere you expected to be when it started. We are first introduced to Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall – Dexter, Six Feet Under), a small town family man and local frame shop owner who is awoken one night to mysterious sounds in his living room. He grabs his gun and slowly makes his way to the living room where a flinch-first encounter with a burglar results in Richard shooting the man.

A police investigation led by Ray Price (the excellent Nick Damici) results in identifying the man as Freddy (Wyatt Russell), a local-based felon with a rap sheet and a bad reputation. The police hail Richard as a home-protecting hero and present it as an open and shut case. However, after Richard visits the cemetary to view the burial of the guy and inadvertently meets his wayward father, Russel (the always great Sam Shepard most recently in last year’s amazing Mud), just out of prison, things start to go strange. First, Russel seems intent on scaring Richard and his family, showing up at Richard’s son’s school, and taking it further at their family home in a truly chilling throwing of the gauntlet. This escalates and in the midst of this, Richard starts to have doubts the man he shot was the man the police claim. One thing leads to another (being very vague on purpose here) and Richard is faced with a series of morality choices as it relates to the man he shot, the dead man’s father and what is really happening with the police.

This expands into a wonderfully gritty middle act that places Richard in completely foriegn waters as he tries to maintain his moral center and all the while balance villany disguised as justice and crooks who might not be only that thing. We’re soon introduced to Jim Bob (the wonderfully cast Don Johnson), an old war buddy of Russels who seems to owe him a pretty substantial debt and who is on call should Russel need him. He is larger than life, smooth, funny and charming – a big-time (in his own world anyway) Houston, Texas lawyer with the red convertible adorned with bull horns on the grill to really round it all out. This character is excellent because he is over-the-top but not played that way. Don Johnson does a wonderful job of staying right where he needs to be: a foil for both Russel’s quiet dust and venom personality and Richard’s fish out of water cluelessness. This is about as perfectly cast a trio of leads as there could possibly be, especially for a grimy noir story that could survive with nothing less.

The third act draws us more into the horror territory and a whole new set of moral questions marred by family, law and interpersonal dilemma. It is strong and ugly and just about perfect – expanding on the role of familial responsibility and a higher moral calling, as it were. If you’re a fan of Joe Landsdale (as I most assuredly am), you’ll be very pleased with the dripping tension and grime Jim Mickle squeezes out of the story. For the uninitiated, you’re treated with the kind of no-BS, tough-as-nails thriller-noir that rarely comes around.

It is quite bracing and bloody and not light fare – especially as the revelations about Russel’s son come to light in the third act, but man is it worth the effort. Expectly scored, directed and edited with a strong-as-hell cast, Jim Mickle’s Cold In July is the kind of film you just revel in for all its ugliness and grace rolled all into one beautiful thing.

This is one hell of a film.