The Dirty South

Rating: 8/10

Director & Writer: Matthew Yerby

Writer: Matthew Yerby

Style: Action/Crime/Drama

Time: 1 hour and 47 minutes

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hin7Q8ZBT7A

Review by Mike Szymanski

How far will you go to save the “family farm”? It’s an age-old question where families are constantly struggling to save the house they grew up in, or the farm they tilled for generations, or the business that the family owned for decades.

In this case, it’s a bar on a bayou in north Louisiana run by Sue Parker and her lazy alcoholic father Gary. A bartender with a heart — and scruples — Sue puts in a full night until 3 a.m. and then gets up to take care of her 10-year-old brother and get him to school. Their father is not much help.

In fact, the father is far behind in payments on the bar, and local land baron Jeb Roy is threatening to buy the place unless they can come up with $30,000 in 72 hours.

Into the pub walks a mysterious guy with two women who work the bar for lots of loose wallets. Sue watches as they pick-pocket the customers and steal their money. Outside, Sue confronts this mysterious stranger who introduces himself as Dion.

She wonders if he can help her get $30,000 in that short amount of time. She knows the area, and she knows the people on the other side of the tracks who have all the money in the world.

But, how far will Sue go for it? And will she help with the scams.

This is another great showcase film for actor Shane West, whom I’m becoming a big fan of lately, since he’s appeared in a slew of recent small movies with juicy roles. I’ve seen him in “Maneater,” “Dracula 2000,” “Liberty Heights” and remember him in multiple episodes on TV’s “Gotham” as Eduardo Dorrance, aka Bane. A teen heart-throb who worked with Mandy Moore in “A Walk to Remember” and played Tom Sawyer in “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” he plays great gritty rugged handsome guys now in his latest spate of meaty roles like this one. I just wrote about him in a spooky film “Mid-Century” (see: https://mikeszythewriter.medium.com/this-mid-century-house-is-filled-with-ghosts-alive-and-dead-movie-review-ece3e45c6d59 )

This is a gripping, enjoyable indie film with quirky characters all with questionable intentions. It comes to a surprising finish, which I found delightfully satisfying.

The character of Dion is particularly an enigma. You never know whether to trust him as this grifter in this film, yet he remains likable despite his unpredictable criminal streak.

The ubiquitous Dermot Mulroney — from “Zodiac,” “Young Guns,” and TV’s “Shameless” and “Crisis” as well as many more shows — plays the land baron Jeb Roy, who is making life hard for Sue and her father. Add to that the complication that his son (played by Andrew Vogel) is coming back from Princeton to try to rekindle his relationship with Sue.

Sue’s dad is played by actor Wayne Pére in a role that takes him from a severe alcoholic and womanizer to a guy who gets his head on straight again. There’s a heart-wrenching scene where Sue sticks her father in a shack outside and chains him up to detox and says, “We can’t afford rehab.”

Sue is played by the remarkable actress Willa Holland, known mostly for the teen drama “The O.C” and also in “Gossip Girl” and “Arrow.” She is believable as a struggling daughter with a big heart, both tough and vulnerable.

Sue gets Dion to open up about his own sordid family past, and she remains wary of this bad guy who wanders into her bar. She doesn’t know what her identity would be if she lost the bar, which was never really hers (but her dad’s), and she knows it would kill her father if it was gone.

This is an impressive first feature film for Matthew Yerby, who has been a theater actor and always wanted to write and direct a movie. A mentor of his suggested that he write what he knows. So, he wrote about the Southern charm he experienced in Natchitoches, Louisiana to tell this story.

The writer and director says, “As much as I know this area’s famous southern charm, I also know the other side of that coin. Sue Parker’s story shows this darker underbelly of the South. My goal is to show the extremes that we as humans often resort to in order to protect the ones we love.”

Everyone knows each other’s business and their “small-town bullshit,” as Sue explains.

Other notable characters and actors are Sue’s little brother Jacob (Caleb Quinney) and her mother Gina (Michelle Mustard), as well as Jeb Roy’s wife Jo Ann (Laura Cayouette).

The movie won best cinematography at the Chelsea Film Festival and was official selections in the Los Angeles Indie Film Festival and the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.

Cineverse is releasing this film, which is now on digital streaming platforms and DVD as of Dec. 12.