''Small Town Crime'' is a 2017 American

neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

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 television host. He is known for his leading roles in television shows such as Andre "Dre" Johnson on the comedy series ''Black-ish'' (2014–2022), Marlin Boulet on the ...

Clifton Collins Jr. Clifton Craig Collins Jr. (born June 16, 1970) is an American film and television actor. He is a Primetime Emmy Award, Independent Spirit Award, Satellite Award, and four-time ALMA Award nominee, and a Screen Actors Guild Award winner. Prior t ...

Michael Vartan Michael Vartan (born November 27, 1968) is an 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 Arrangeme ...

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

James Lafferty James Martin Lafferty (born July 25, 1985) is an American actor, director, and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of Nathan Scott on The WB/ CW teen drama television series '' One Tree Hill'' (2003–2012). Early life Lafferty was bo ...

Robert Forster Robert Wallace Foster Jr. (July 13, 1941 – October 11, 2019), known professionally as Robert Forster, was an American actor. He made his screen debut as Private L.G. Williams in John Huston's '' Reflections in a Golden Eye'' (1967), followed ...

and

Octavia Spencer Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for two Primetime Emmy ...

. The film premiered at

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

on March 11, 2017 and was made available to watch on

DirecTV Cinema DirecTV Cinema (previously known as Direct Ticket, Blockbuster Ticket, Blockbuster Pay-Per-View Movies, and DirecTV Pay-Per-View) is DirecTV's video on demand and pay-per-view platform for film content. Films are released as is done on other pay- ...

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 *

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 *

as Tony Lama *

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

as Detective Pete Whitman *

Dale Dickey Diana Dale Dickey 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 in popular revivals of '' ...

as Leslie *

Jeremy Ratchford Jeremy Ratchford (born August 6, 1965) is a Canadian actor. He starred as Nick Vera on the TV series ''Cold Case''. Early life Ratchford was born in Kitchener, Ontario, on August 6, 1965. He studied acting at Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and ...

as "Orthopedic" * Don Harvey as Randy * Michelle Lang as Tina *

Robyn Lively Robyn Elaine Lively Johnson (born February 7, 1972) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in the 1989 films '' Teen Witch'' and '' The Karate Kid Part III'', as well as the TV shows '' Doogie Howser, M.D.'', ''Twin Peaks'', '' Savanna ...

as Deborah Nevile * Bart Johnson as Carl Nevile * Stefanie Scott as Ivy Oarblocker * Stefania Barr as Kristen "Kristy" Nevile

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 the ...

began in February 2016 and took place over 35 days in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

Release

The film premiered at

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

Film Festival on March 11, 2017.

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

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 and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...

, 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 an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, 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 English-language crime thriller films