Cook County
YEAR OF PRODUCTION: 2008
Anson Mount dominates the pic with his skittish, scary performance as Bump, a would-be drug kingpin who supplies meth throughout his rural county -- and accelerates his vertiginous mood swings by sampling his own product.
Bump is so far gone that he doesn't bother hiding his business, or his addiction, from his 6-year-old daughter, Deandra (Makenna Fitzsimmons). Abe (Ryan Donowho), Bump's teenage nephew, tries his best to look out for Deandra, but the anxious young man also struggles to look out for himself: Having recently kicked his own habit, he finds it hard to stay straight while residing in a house with a meth lab in the kitchen.
Abe dares hope things will change for the better when Sonny (Xander Berkeley) -- his father, Bump's brother -- returns after a lengthy, unexplained absence. Sonny claims he, too, has gone straight, and needs just a little time to earn enough money so he and Abe (and possibly Deandra) can have a second chance somewhere else. Trouble is, Sonny has a hidden agenda. And Bump has a loaded shotgun.
Without resorting to melodrama or caricature, Pomes persuasively renders the specifics of life, death and drug addiction in a rural Texas milieu. It's a place where tweakers and dealers alike are good ol' boys (and gals), and all the ingredients for crystal meth can be purchased at a convenience store where the owner is too clueless to know, or too cavalier to care.
Mount plays Bump as a ticking time bomb, always just one temper flare away from bloody mayhem. But the actor also provides effective shadings of character, so his expression often reveals a flurry of conflicting, contradictory emotions. This is especially true during a disquieting climactic scene in which Bump must decide what matters most, his daughter or his business.
Donowho and Berkeley develop an edgy give-and-take, suggesting their characters are bound not so much by family ties as by shared fear.
Camera Brad Rushing; editor, Brann Edgens; music, Scott Szabo, the Rockabilly Orchestra; music supervisor, Randall Jamail; production designer, James Fowler; set decorators, Shayla Jacobs; Ruel "Roosta" Hill, Leila Lister; sound, Scott Szabo; assistant director, Ra-Ana Gilani.
