Leigh
Tiller has made some terrible decisions in her life, but let’s blame her
problematic father for them. That’s what she does. It was certainly ill-advised
to marry a crook and maintain his chop shop business while he is in the big
house, but killing one of his violent associates will really be a doozy. Naturally,
the cover-up makes everything worse in Matthew Pope’s Blood on Her Name, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.
Even
with the off-the-books work, Tiller is struggling to make ends meet. Partly it
is due to the restitution payments her sullen son Ryan still owes after
blinding a would-be bully in a violent altercation. With a son on probation and
a husband in the pen, Tiller panics after killing the latter’s former partner.
It was an instinctive decision that she did not think out. Clearly, the cuts
and bruises on her face suggest something happened. There is also a body to dispose
of, but Tiller rather rashly returns him to his swampy home, so at least his
wife and son will have some closure. Empathy—it might just be the end of her.
Of
course, one darned thing happens after another for Tiller. Soon she is lying to
everyone. She might even have to turn to her father Richard, but since he is
the corrupt local sheriff, he could probably fix her problems.
Sometimes
it is entertaining to watch hapless characters dig themselves deeper and deeper
holes and sometimes it is painful to watch, because there is something about
them that strikes a chord with us. In this case, it is just excruciating to see
Tiller make every wrong decision possible. Granted, it is hard to prepare
yourself mentally for this kind of situation, but Tiller is just hopeless.
Yet,
maybe the most tiresome aspect of Name is
constant flashbacks to the time Tiller witnessed her father do something truly
awful during her childhood. We’ve seen this sort of motif before, but it is way
overdone this time around.
Still,
the cast is certainly first-rate, starting with Bethany Anne Lind, who is
impressively gritty, self-destructive, and altogether damaged as Tiller.
Reliable character actor Will Patton is entertainingly sly and salty as the old
man. Jimmy Gonzales is terrific as Reynoso Dias, Tiller’s mechanic and
potential love interest, who serves as the film’s conscience. However, the
biggest surprise is an almost unrecognizable Elisabeth Rohm, looking weathered
and emotionally distraught as the widowed Dani Wilson.
Pope
infuses Name with a strong sense of
its back-country milieu and he gets some great work out of his cast.
Unfortunately, impulsive and contrived plot points quickly become exhausting.
Even though it is just under 90 minutes, viewers will feel relieved when it is
finally over. Not good enough to recommend, Blood
on Her Name opens this Friday (2/28), at the Laemmle Monica Film Center.
