Red Right Hand
Red Right Hand
Fake conversations and depictions should not go in a screenplay. I am stating this because it is evident throughout in ‘Red Right Hand’ that terrible writing is supported by ‘talented’ performers. No one ever should be asking them to swallow camera. It is disgusting. In the opening sequence of ‘Red Right Hand’, we see one of the characters gone bad, for no apparent reason.
Big Cat cutting a bloody figure (that starts off with feeding a sheriff’s deputy to her dogs) also gave me a little sick feeling. Maybe that’s the point?, one could ask if that is the point. Perhaps there is no artistic direction at all? “Red Right Hand”, is about any different vision than Derek Van Loon’s – it has quite dark twists and unnecessary references, especially very violent ones we’ve witnessed in the main character played by Andie MacDowell.
Set in Kentucky, the crime thriller features Orlando Bloom as Cash, a former gang member with a burned hand that marked his departure from the gang. He is seeking peace following the overdose death of his sister. He has been living in a small cabin on her land and is working on her farm with Finney (Scott Haze), his drunk brother-in-law, and his niece Savannah, who carries a wide set of glasses (Chapel Oaks), a young actress.
But of course, in these kinds of stories, nothing is ever as simple as someone wanting a clear new beginning. When Big Cat dispatches her gang to punish his relatives for the $100,000 that Finney borrowed and later squandered, Cash has no chance but to go back. For Big Cat, who is an “empire builder, money is never enough,” so with reluctance, he agrees to help Big Cat achieve her vision, which includes showing her how to cut off people unflinchingly. Various violent drug deals ensue. Knowing the precariousness of the deal, Cash and Finney also make sure Savannah knows how to use a gun.
Even though Bloom tries his very best to give it an edge and make it gritty for Cash who is heavily tattooed and pulls his weight up from the porch, there always seems to be an element of unsureness in his work.
It is rather clear that one can see the acting not the being. This would not necessarily be a problem, if Bloom was not trying to be realistic and instead embraced the over exaggerated nature of his work. There are times to be sincere and brood, but for these types of blood drenched sagas, more is required.
Garret Dillahunt’s portrayal of Wilder as an ex-drug addict, ex gang-member turned preacher is impressive though. Dillahunt broadens his stage with dramatic performance and dialogues. It’s not until one imagines preacher Harry Powell out of the book of John Milton while praying that one can appreciate hurling invectives at a dubious that have the words of “I am the Devil, a ravenous beast” and finds it appropriate for the film titled “Paradise Lost.”
These are the best moments for MacDowell too, and both actors put in their best performances in ages. Surrounded by cream men with guns and oversized leather shrouds adorned with gruesome silver buckles, Big Cat is the biggest baddie, who has more complex iniquities. A southern lady herself, she understands the persuasive power of understatement and how a well-placed threat is more powerful than being blatant. She now has poison where blood used to be.
It’s unfortunate, however, that her malicious fellow gangsters seem more like a stomp and holler band than a blood thirsty killer’s cohort. Everyone is a bit too neatly dressed and polished, with well trimmed mustaches and proper attire. Where are the character actors, someone like a jack elam or a warren oates who sported worn out faces to fit characters who lead such hard rugged lives?
Well at least, Johnny Derango, the cinematographer, appropriately goes for the very much stylized eyepopping high contrast colors in his night scenes constantly using orange and teal spliting these colors on the frame. Roughly half of the film happens on the night and fortunately to the naysayers who hate these noir dreams, the scenes are shot correctly and are well lit. This means you actually see the faces of the characters as characters. This is something that seems to be more and more limited for any motion picture these days.”
Sadly, the final climatic shootout which should be the high point in the film for Bloom sees the artist all but absent for long periods of time. While Savannah is utilizing her acquired gun skills, and the preacher engages with Big Cat, the awkwardly choreographed cutting is also bewildered as to what to do with Bloom who in the main spends the sequence attempting to sneak her way through the peripheral woodlands into the complex.
At around this point, it seems, the production had concluded that Dillahunt and MacDowell were the ones carrying the film on their shoulders. This is not shocking, however, as these two characters’ narrative arcs make perfect sense – the film is telling us that the narrative type of America is God, family, guns, drugs and money. Amen.
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- Genre: Action, Thriller
- Country: United States
- Director: Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms
- Cast: Garret Dillahunt, Orlando Bloom, Andie MacDowell
