Ambition outstrips expertise in writer-director Phil Blattenberger’s “Laws of Man,” whose serpentine plot winds up seeming a wild goose chase — one whose execution should have been, well, wilder. Action and atmosphere are too poorly supplied for this stab at a noirish retro thriller to emerge as anything but talky, awkward and unconvincing. Set in 1963, it takes a big narrative leap toward the end that suggests an intent closer to such willfully over-the-top Cold War paranoia fantasias as “Dr. Strangelove” and “Winter Kills.” But the satirical edge which might’ve pulled off that gambit is absent throughout, making for a whole that’s peculiar without ever being very engaging. Saban is releasing the feature to U.S. theaters, digital and On Demand platforms Jan. 10.
Based in state capitol Carson City, Frank (Jacob Keohane) and Tommy (Jackson Rathbone) are U.S. marshals who’ve driven 15 hours into the remotest Nevada desert terrain to arrest one Crash Mooncalf (Richard Brake) and his criminal gang. A shootout ensues, leaving none of their quarry alive — and illustrating the differences between these ill-matched officers of the law.
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Frank is a by-the-book type whose rigidity is in part a battle against PTSD from the WW2 military service shown in heavy-handed flashbacks. Younger Tommy is by contrast a trigger-happy “cowboy,” inclined toward any available wine and women, as well as ignoring whatever protocols are in play. When they find a dusty motel for the night, Tommy quickly hooks up with an improbably glam resident lady-in-red (Ashley Gallegos as Dinah), who angrily insists she’s not a prostitute … then requires $20 for the night, nonetheless. Following some idle chat with bartender Callie (Kelly Lynn Reiter), Frank simply retires to his room, where he’ll be plagued as usual by combat nightmares.
The next day, they’ve got another warrant to serve. This time the recipient is area rancher Benjamin Bonney (Dermot Mulroney), who along with his thuggish sons is suspected of murdering anyone hereabouts who won’t surrender their own land to him. Once again, our heroes are greeted with a shootout, though this time the duo manage to get inside — only to find the smirking Bonneys informing them that the warrant has been canceled, which a phone call confirms.
Clearly, there is some sort of conspiracy going on here, protecting these guilty parties. While no longer officially on the case, the ticked-off marshals decide to stick around and get to the bottom of it. Significant figures that turn up later on include an FBI agent Tommy fought with in the Korean War (Christopher El), his icy superior (Keith Carradine) and a foreign scientist (Chase Gutzmore) employed on a top-secret project.
A wasted Graham Greene as the county sheriff aside, the scenery-chewing veteran name actors don’t seem to be taking things very seriously — least of all Harvey Keitel as an old-coot sage in an RV “preacher wagon” who seems to have dropped in from a different movie. Unfortunately, the leads and other junior performers are required to play it straight, which does not work to their benefit. The pseudo-hard-boiled dialogue they’re handed is too often stilted, the behaviors and situations strained. The often absurdly trigger-happy characters fire so many rounds to so little discernible impact on their surroundings, it’s almost as if the film doesn’t want you to forget these are just actors shooting blanks — they might as well be cocking their fingers and saying, “Pew! Pew! Pew!”
It doesn’t help that even within the modest bounds of its rural setting and limited cast population, “Laws of Man” does a very slipshod job of conveying the period. Is it so hard to convince an actor playing a federal agent 60 years ago to get a haircut more appropriate than what might be termed “early ’90s Brad Pitt”? Many such distracting details undercut a plausibility Blattenberger never establishes in the first place.
There are enough left turns in his script to make you wonder if at some point the director intended a more freewheeling, surreal journey before budgetary limitations and other factors reined his vision in. But the finished product feels relatively humorless, leaving the cast looking silly in scenes that might conceivably have flown if played as deadpan comedy — not a tenor achieved or seemingly even aimed for here.
Likewise, the pedestrian design contributions keep “Laws of Man” from attaining higher ground, with Daniel Troyer’s cinematography and Ching-Shan Chang’s original score echoing yesteryear’s basic B-movie competency minus any sense of style or irony. “Laws of Man” does finally go somewhere you weren’t quite expecting. But the getting there is so frequently hapless, that destination ends up just another idea it lacks the means or skillset to properly realize.