''Small Town Crime'' is a 2017 American

neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by Eshom Nelms and Ian Nelms. It stars John Hawkes as an alcoholic ex-cop who discovers a woman left for dead on the side of a road and finds himself compelled to locate the killer. As he investigates further, he encounters several shady characters and inadvertently puts his family in danger. It also stars

Anthony Anderson Anthony Anderson (born August 15, 1970) is an American actor, comedian and game show host. He is best known for his leading roles in drama series such as Marlin Boulet on '' K-Ville'', and as NYPD Detective Kevin Bernard on the NBC crime drama ...

, Clifton Collins Jr.,

Michael Vartan Michael S. Vartan (born November 27, 1968) is a French-American actor, known for his role as Michael Vaughn on the ABC television action drama ''Alias'', his role on the TNT medical drama '' Hawthorne'', and his role on the '' E!'' drama '' The A ...

Caity Lotz Caitlin Marie Lotz (born December 30, 1986) is an American actress, dancer and singer. She has portrayed Stephanie Horton in '' Mad Men'', Officer Kirsten Landry in the MTV mockumentary series ''Death Valley'' (2011), Annie in '' The Pact'' (201 ...

, James Lafferty,

Robert Forster Robert Wallace Forster Jr. (July 13, 1941 – October 11, 2019) was an American actor, known for his roles as John Cassellis in '' Medium Cool'' (1969), Captain Dan Holland in ''The Black Hole'' (1979), Abdul Rafai in '' The Delta Force'' (1986 ...

and

Octavia Spencer Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Critics' Choice Awards and three Screen Actors ...

. The film premiered at SXSW on March 11, 2017 and was made available to watch on

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beginning December 21, 2017 before getting released in select theaters January 19, 2018, by Saban Films.

Cast

* John Hawkes as Mike Kendall / P.I. Jack Winter, an ex-cop now working as a private investigator *

as Kelly Banks, Teddy's wife and Mike's adopted sister *

as Teddy Banks, Kelly's husband and Mike's best friend, who acts like a brother to him *

as Steve Yendel, Kristy's grandfather * Clifton Collins Jr. as Mood, a hardened tough but gentle pimp who is hellbent on exacting revenge on whoever killed his prostitutes *

as Detective Scott Crawford *

as Heidi * James Lafferty as Tony Lama *

Daniel Sunjata Daniel Sunjata Condon (born December 30, 1971) is an American actor who performs in film, television and theater. He is known for his role as Franco Rivera in the FX television series '' Rescue Me''. Early life and education Sunjata was born a ...

as Detective Pete Whitman *

Dale Dickey Diana Dale Dickey (born September 29, 1961) is an American character actress who has worked in theater, film, and television. She began her career on stage, performing in the 1989 Broadway version of ''The Merchant of Venice'', before appearing ...

as Leslie * Jeremy Ratchford as Orthopedic * Don Harvey as Randy * Michelle Lang as Tina * Robyn Lively as Deborah Nevile * Bart Johnson as Carl Nevile *

Stefanie Scott Stephanie Noelle Scott (born December 6, 1996) is an American actress and singer. Scott began acting with the comedy film '' Beethoven's Big Break'' (2008), and thereafter released her debut extended play ''New Girl in Town'' (2009). This was fol ...

as Ivy * Stefania Barr as Kristy

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

began in February 2016 and took place over 35 days in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

Release

The film premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival on March 11, 2017.

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

and Saban Films later secured the North American distribution rights, and released the film on January 19, 2018.

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 79% based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "''Small Town Crime'' makes for a satisfying modern noir outing, largely thanks to the all-around impressive efforts of a solidly stacked cast led by John Hawkes." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * {{rotten tomatoes, small_town_crime American crime thriller films 2017 crime thriller films Films shot in Utah Saban Films films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films