One thing is clear after watching “Mob Land”: Kevin Dillon will not be the man to end America’s opioid crisis. In fact, it’s possible that the prescription drug epidemic currently gutting this country will not end at the hands of any single “Entourage” cast member.
The man formerly known as Johnny Drama stars in the film as Trey, a reckless drifter whose lime green Japanese sports car raises plenty of eyebrows in his small MAGA town. But despite his life of petty crime and general inability to get his act together, Trey has a few thoughts about the opioids that have begun circulating through his town at an alarming rate.
He sees his friends and neighbors struggling to make ends meet while the local strip mall pill mill rakes in six figures by feeding their addictions. Through some combination of altruism and greed (OK, it’s mostly greed), he convinces himself that the he’s the man to do something about the problem. Naturally, his solution involves robbing the drug operation and keeping the pills and cash for himself.
He enlists his brother-in-law Shelby (Shiloh Fernandez), an amateur drag racer who struggles to provide for his wife and daughter while quietly battling his own addiction. The strait-laced mechanic isn’t eager to dive into violent crime, but Trey convinces him that it will be an easy job. That profoundly stupid advice sets off a domino chain that sends Nick Maggio’s directorial debut down a bloody road through the regrets and grievances of a town that has nothing left to live for.
The pill mill ends up being guarded more heavily than anyone expected, forcing Trey to kill two men while still attracting the attention of the New Orleans mafioso who is bankrolling the drug operation. To make matters worse, local sheriff and family friend Bodie Davis (John Travolta), becomes determined to solve the mystery of the bloody robbery, despite his department’s minuscule resources. Travolta uses his relatively small amount of screen time to turn in exactly the kind of performance you’d expect him to give as a bumbling sheriff, complete with a strange gag where he sniffs the outside of cigarette boxes to curtail his urge to smoke.
Shelby soon finds himself in the unenviable position of having to clean up his brother-in-law’s mess, with both a curious lawman and a vindictive mob pursuing him at the same time. Despite his lifelong attempt to set a good example for his daughter, he’s forced to operate in a zone of increasing moral ambiguity by forming an underworld alliance in an attempt to weasel out of this predicament with his head attached.
The most natural comp for “Mob Land” is, of course, “Hell or High Water.” The film shares obvious DNA with Taylor Sheridan’s Oscar-nominated heist movie, from its tendency to infuse neo-Western motifs with commentary on rural poverty to its cat-and-mouse dynamic between a grizzled old sheriff and two brothers. But “Mob Land” never quite reaches the heights of the films that inspired it. While Maggio succeeds at painting a tragic backdrop with his drug-addled town, the straightforward revenge story offers audiences little to think about beyond standard tropes. And the attempts at spectacle never quite land, as Maggio’s ambitious car chase sequences and shootouts seem to stretch his resources and give the impression of a filmmaker biting off more than he can chew.
Still, the problems with “Mob Land” are hardly reasons to write off Maggio’s directing career. While his first feature falls short in several departments, the filmmaker demonstrates a unique voice that could see him filling a Sheridan-esque void in a media landscape that frequently ignores Middle America. It’s easy to imagine a world where his bloody Americana aesthetic continues to evolve until he makes a “Hell or High Water”-level classic of his own.
We could all use more three-dimensional stories about working class Americans — particularly ones that allow their protagonists to be heroes rather than simply dwelling on their misfortunes. In that sense, “Mob Land” really is a noble effort, and one misfire shouldn’t stop the industry from making more movies like it. Because believe it or not, there are still some problems that can’t be solved by the combined acting talents of Kevin Dillon and 2023 John Travolta.
Grade: C
A Saban Films release, “Mob Land” is now playing in select theaters.
