Elmore Leonard — cinematically, maybe probably the most influential author of the 20th century whose title by no means gave rise to an adjective — casts an extended shadow over Jeffrey Reiner’s Lake George, a satisfying L.A. noir that follows his legacy nearly to the letter. There’s no chiaroscuro right here, nothing unhealthy occurs even remotely in darkness, however there’s an ethical shading that Leonard would most definitely take pleasure in. For some motive, although, these sunshine-crime tales by no means appear to stay like their shadowy counterparts do, which signifies that Lake George might need to attend some time earlier than it finds out the place it sits in the entire noir canon.
Reiner’s script leans into a whole lot of conventional crime-movie tropes, and it begins with an ambiguous one: Don (Shea Whigham), a middle-aged divorcé, has simply been launched from jail after 10 years inside. However for what? Don doesn’t appear the sort, and his first calls on the surface, after phoning his ex-wife (who doesn’t choose up), are to get himself a job. Nothing is forthcoming, nevertheless, since Don’s legit enterprise contacts are both bancrupt or useless. Which is why he goes again to Armen (Glenn Fleshler), the gang boss he did the time for, visiting him at his palatial home in Glendale, the place he lives with bodyguard Harout (Max Casella).
Don thinks Armen owes him cash for his silence, and Armen is stunned. “I didn’t assume you had the balls to return right here and ask for it,” he says. “You have to be hitting the observe once more,” he provides, alluding to a playing downside. Armen, although, is sympathetic, providing to pay Don what he thinks he’s owed — however for a worth.
Armen has an issue that he must go away: his associate, Phyllis (Carrie Coon), a lady he bonded with over medication, whom he trusted together with his enterprise however, although she’s “good with numbers,” now is aware of an excessive amount of. The mild-mannered Don refuses level clean, saying he’s no killer, however Armen lays it on the road: “Anyone is able to something in the event that they’re determined sufficient.”
Don takes the job, as a result of he’ll be whacked if doesn’t, and will get kitted out with a automotive, a cellphone and a .45 pistol (the zip-ties are on the home) at Armen’s native storage. He begins to stake out Phyllis, lastly cornering her within the parking zone beneath her swanky condominium, forcing her into his automotive and driving her out into the desert. It’s no spoiler to disclose that he’s unable to comply with by means of, nevertheless, since we all know by now that Don shouldn’t be that sort of man and Carrie Coon is actually not the sort of actress that you just kill off within the first half hour.
This impressed, ’70s-style pairing will preserve Lake George motoring for fairly a while whereas Don tries to determine his plan. Phyllis is a motormouth, pumping Don for helpful info whereas revealing loads of her personal turbulent life with Armen (“I believed I was a coke fiend. Nostril like a Dyson!”). Reiner will get into his neo-noir groove right here, as Phyllis begins to apply her darkish arts on Don, presumably simply as she did with Armen. And, let’s face it, she’s known as Phyllis, like Double Indemnity’s Phyllis Dietrichson, probably the most fatale-est of femmes within the identified noir universe.
Coon, nevertheless, isn’t fairly going for Barbara Stanwyck’s steely edge, and what’s attention-grabbing concerning the movie — at the very least for style followers — is how these two actors will fill the archetypal roles given them. Is Whigham only a patsy, and can Phyllis stroll throughout him? Reiner has a whole lot of enjoyable with that energy construction, with a macabre playfulness that will likely be acquainted to admirers of Fargo (the movie and the sequence).
Lake George could not abide by all of Leonard’s guidelines (he advised the New York Occasions, “If it feels like writing, I rewrite it,” and far of Reiner’s movie, the dialogue particularly, sounds an terrible lot like writing). But it surely does put depth of character first, and if Leonard-esque was an adjective, it will apply right here: actual, flawed, folks embroiled in believable, mundane and sometimes deeply uncool crime situations. Coon is magnetic as at all times, however that is Whigham’s present, and this efficiency would possibly but take him to awards season as one of many 12 months’s greatest.
Title: Lake George
Pageant: Tribeca (Highlight Narrative)
Director-screenwriter: Jeffrey Reiner
Forged: Shea Whigham, Carrie Coon, Glenn Fleshler, Max Casella
Gross sales agent: Vary Media Companions
Working time: 1 hr 47 min
