Little Dixie

Frank Grillo is quite the oddball here. He’s rescuing a daughter who has a head shaped like Skipper from Penguins of Madagascar, and her mother is an ugly guy in a wig. In the process, he wipes out half of Oklahoma and Texas, only opening his heart when talking to a severed head on the passenger seat. Somehow, his snow-white shirt stays spotless, even while he’s slicing up a body with a chainsaw (to be fair, in the last two scenes there’s a tiny ketchup stain on his right shoulder from breakfast). And then there’s the tough kidnapper who enjoys killing, pretentious speeches, and the backsides of aging drag queens. Building the entire film around their inevitable confrontation is a pleasantly satisfying genre standard, and if you can look past the logical inconsistencies and dumb mistakes (like the return of blinking corpses, as seen in Candy Land), you might even catch a vibe of Paul Schrader and Abel Ferrara in there. (10.03.2023)