By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Angela Trimbur, Chase Williamson and Melora Walters
Written and directed by Mickey Keating
Missing Link Productions
It’s hard to get into what is about CROOKS that edges it into horror territory without giving too much away. But then, not too many of the film’s specifics should be discussed in general, since writer/director Mickey Keating throws curveballs into his plot from close to the start. Keating, the indie auteur behind DARLING, CARNAGE PARK, OFFSEASON and others, never met a genre or subgenre he couldn’t twist in odd directions, and so it is with his latest (a world premiere at this month’s Tribeca Festival). In some ways, it’s the latest in the long line of post-Tarantino crime thrillers that are aware they’re crime thrillers, while it also possesses the kind of distinctive touches that set Keating’s work apart—not to mention a major reversal or two.
As usual, Keating works his limited means to his advantage, focusing tight on just a handful of characters. First and foremost is Faye (Angela Trimbur from THE FINAL GIRLS, TRASH FIRE et al.), a down-on-her-luck lounge singer in a Chicago milieu that appears comprised entirely of the traditional settings of classic noir melodramas and their modern offspring. Like all heroines in stories of this type, she has a dubious past, and it catches back up with her in the form of Johnny (Chase Williamson), her former literal partner in crime. He re-enters her life to convince her to join him in another robbery, the target being a high-stakes back-room poker game where the players are high-level gangsters. Naturally, she’s reluctant to pick up a gun again, but she could use the money, and so could her boyfriend—who, along with his family, is getting squeezed hard by a sleazebag porn producer (Joe Swanberg) over some outstanding debts.
For the first act or so of CROOKS, Keating plays with the chronology and alternates color and black-and-white sequences in ways that have become pro forma for this kind of film. Even the musical choices are tried-and-true to the point of seeming like homage, like Léo Delibes’ “Flower Duet,” previously heard in THE HUNGER, TRUE ROMANCE and many others. What holds the attention from the beginning are the characters and the way they live lives of raw emotion, not to mention the increasing trouble they find themselves in. Ripping off a bunch of hardcore criminals has the expected consequences, most notably the attention of The Ghost (Keith Kupferer), a ruthless hit man whose attention you really, really don’t want. And then there’s Blanche (Melora Walters), a diner waitress who at first appears to be a lonely soul clinging to long-dashed dreams of becoming an actress, but has secrets of her own.
The trappings may be familiar, but the people collide in unexpected ways, and Keating keeps both the dialogue and the pace nice and snappy, bringing the whole thing in at under 80 minutes. Trimbur gives a high-voltage performance that at times is as stylized as the visuals (courtesy of DPs Mac Fisken and Edgar T. Gómez), and is complemented well by Walters’ earthier turn and Kupferer’s implacable menace. He plays as a real threat, and Keating makes the violence dealt by him and others blunt, shocking and uncompromising. As a result, while a couple of latecoming plot turns are questionable, Keating has by this point tightened the screws to the point where you can overlook them as you wait, both curiously and nervously, to see where the story will go next.
