Let’s
take an outing to Atlantic City, where the surfing is mediocre and Trump lost
dumpster trucks full of money in the casino business. Signing on with the
police force wouldn’t be much of a career move for a former hotshot
Philadelphia cop, but Babel “Babs” Johnson was lucky to get the gig. He wants to
rebuild his life, but rampant corruption and a brewing storm do not cooperate
in Emanuele Della Valle’s Wetlands (trailer here), which opens today
in New York.
We
never learn what precisely went down in Philly, but it obviously involved
drugs. Johnson is now clean-ish and used the last of his connections to join
the AC force, in order to be near Amy, the daughter he lost all visitation
rights for. His ex-wife Savanah will not cut him any slack, even though she is
still a hot mess party girl herself. Frankly, her lesbian lover, “Surfer Girl,”
represents the only stability in Amy’s life, even though she also happens to be
pushing drugs on the beach for the local syndicate.
Johnson
wants to shut their operation down, but his mobbed-up chief won’t have any of
that. He sort of has an ally in his new partner, compulsive gambler Paddy
Sheehan, but it is Sheehan’s wife, news anchor Kate, who is really in Johnson’s
corner (and in his bed). Naturally, everything comes to a head as the storm of
the century of the year bears down on the Jersey shore.
Wetlands is part noir and
part character study, but all kinds of moody. Frankly, the Johnson family soap
opera gets a little tiresome after the fiftieth awkward encounter between the
cop, his ex-wife, and her girlfriend. However, Della Valla earns credit for
drawing some vivid characters. Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje is always tightly
restrained and inner-focused as Johnson, but his angst-ridden performance is
often downright harrowing to behold. Heather Graham de-glams more than she ever
has prior as the earthy ex-wife. As always, it is great fun to watch
Christopher MacDonald do his roguish thing—and a cat like Det. Sheehan is
dead-smack in the center of his power zone. Yet, it is Jennifer Ehle who is a revelatory
scene-stealer as the disillusioned but still seductive Kate Sheehan.
