When the Devil goes down South, he often enjoys the local Americana roots music.
He tuned Robert Johnson’s guitar at the Crossroads and fiddled with Charlie
Daniels. Logically, Robert Johnson was a particular inspiration for this blues-rock-flavored
horror-movie-musical. Yes, this is a musical and it works. On the other hand,
the deal a father made most definitely does not work for his three sons (from
different mothers). He shook hands with Old Scratch, but they were the ones who
were left to pay in Brandon McCormick’s The Devil and the Daylong Brothers,
which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.
It
was sort of Satanic child abuse when Nehemiah Daylong sold the souls of his
future sons, Ishmael, Enoch, and Abraham, rather than his own. Understandably,
the Daylong half-siblings rather resent his bargain. Facing damnation, they
made their own deal with Clarence, a soul-collecting demon, filling his quota
of similarly damned souls in exchange for their father’s location. Theoretically,
if they kill him first, he takes their place, voiding their debt.
Unfortunately,
trusting Clarence is rather foolish, as most viewers would expect. However, Frankie,
a damned soul known to associate with infernal folk, might lead them to their
troublesome father. Of course, as a femme fatale with demonic experience, she
has a knack for exposing their weaknesses and offering temptations.
One
of the titular characters never appears in the film, but the brothers rage and
bicker together in almost every scene. As the Daylong trio, Brendan
Bradley, Nican Robinson, and Jordon
Bolden are unnervingly fierce. They are also decent singers, thanks to some
help from songwriter and music-and-film producer Nicholas Kirk. Some of the
musical numbers feel more like 80’s music videos than Bollywood-style musicals,
in that characters might initially breakout into song, but they do not always
lip-synch the entire tune, but they mostly flow quite smoothly.
The U.S. Marshals Service was created to enforce and protect, rather than
investigate. In addition to pursuing Federal fugitives and serving warrants,
they provide security for missile silos and Antarctic stations. Unfortunately,
these two Marshals are no Sam Gerard (from The Fugitive). They are
deeply flawed, but at least they are both military veterans (one during WWII,
the other in Korea), so when the bad guys declare war on them, they know how to
return fire in director-screenwriter Phil Blattenberger’s Laws of Man,
which releases tomorrow in theaters and on VOD.
Frank
Fenton and Tommy Morton are Marshals, but they dress like Hoover-era Feds. The
abstaining Fenton also acts like a Mormon, which should help him in
hardscrabble Utah, but not with their first target, the deranged criminal
family of Crash Mooncalf. They try to settle matters with a hail of bullets,
but instead Morton plugs the old man right between the eyes. He considers that
a result, whereas the justice-minded Fenton admonishes it as a mistake. The
warrant for Benjamin Bonney (never explicitly identified as a descendant of
Billy the Kid, but that would make sense) will be more difficult.
Again,
Fenton and Morton demonstrate tactical superiority over Bonney and his three
sons (one of whom seems to be invisible), but the grizzled old killer was
already way ahead of them, having quashed their warrant. Frankly, the
humiliations that follow are not credible, because threatening a federal
officer is never legal under any circumstances. However, it prompts some serious
hardcore seething from the tightly wound Fenton. Obviously, someone is
protecting Bonney and the local head of the FBI field office, Galen Armstrong
seems like a likely candidate, since he practically walks around with a sign
around his neck that says “bad guy.”
Nevertheless,
the first forty-five minutes or so work pretty well, because of how
Blattenberger shows the two Marshals working together and relating to each
other. They both clearly carry a great deal of baggage, but Morton adopts a
live-for-today attitude, whereas Fenton ruminates over the past—deeply and
often.
Laws
of Man also
benefits from a colorful supporting cast, including some big names squandering
in brief throwaway roles, like James Urbaniak as a gas station proprietor and
Graham Greene as the fatalistic (or maybe just bored) sheriff. However, Harvey
Keitel is delightful to watch chewing the scenery as Cassidy Whittaker a
traveling revivalist priest, sort of in the tradition of Orange County
ex-hippie Evangelicals who still retained some stoner tendencies, who were much
more prevalent in the 1970s. (It is an entertaining performance, even if you don’t
know what I’m talking about.)
