(2 / 5)
An overachieving college student gets lost on her way to a job interview. A wrong turn leaves her stranded deep in the Kentucky forest. The young woman must defend herself against the harsh elements and a band of ruthless outlaws. She is forced into an uneasy alliance with a strange loner who has unknown intentions.
What starts as a survival tale of a girl on the run from a bunch of hicks, turns into a tale of police corruption and moonshine meth labs in raggedy trailers, a Kentucky-set “Breaking Bad” without the stellar performances or ingenious plot twists, but with twangy accents a-plenty, and plot holes large enough to drive a pick-up truck through. Put it this way – pick any episode of the Vince Gilligan show and it will likely contain more humor, memorable one-liners and, yes, depth, than the entirety of “Rust Creek.”
Sawyer (Hermione Corfield) is on her way to a job interview when she gets hopelessly lost somewhere in Kentucky. Blame it on the GPS. Next thing she knows, Hollister (Micah Hauptman) and Buck (Daniel R. Hill), are chasing her down for no good reason other than to kill her. She finds herself injured and lost – that is, until Lowell (Jay Paulson), a meth cook with a heart of gold, “rescues” her and keeps her a willing prisoner in his trailer.
Soon enough, Sawyer forgets all about her interview and starts helping – yes, helping – Lowell cook meth. Who needs a job when you can get a complimentary crash course in complex chemistry? In the meantime, Hollister and Buck’s suspicions rise, as does the local corrupt Sheriff O’Doyle’s (Sean O’Bryan), and the circle starts closing in, leading to an explosive (and explosively ludicrous) finale.
Sean O’Bryan in Rust Creek (2018).
Aside from the plot inconsistencies and Deus ex Machina coincidences, the most unfortunate aspect of Jen McGowan’s thriller is that it decides to veer off, at the halfway point, into a half-explored tale of corrupt cops and the rats that swarm in America’s deep country underbelly. The first half, the survival tale part, isn’t all that great to begin with, heavily punctuated by needless, prolonged scenes of Sawyer crawling around in circles through the woods. But if the actress were given a fleshed-out backstory, I feel like she could have carried this thread further, a woman vs. nature vs. hicks parable. Instead, we get a by-the-numbers, made-for-TV, laughably-written but morbidly presented “Winter’s Bone” without the winter, or any backbone.
In the beginning, when Sawyer is harassed by Hollister and Buck, the film briefly reminded me of Tom Ford’s vastly superior “Nocturnal Animals,” which also delves into Hicksville, USA, but adds layers to itself, turning a grim tale of revenge into a sophisticated treatise on human aspirations; no small feat. “Rust Creek” has no such aspirations – and that would be fine if it functioned as a mean, lean, “survival thriller” killing machine. Unfortunately, the engine that makes this machine run is as rusty as the trailer park it depicts, with a plot that stumbles and stalls as it creaks along.
In theaters and on VOD Friday, January 4th
