Stereotypical man-with-a-vengeance story set in the Mississippi delta. Ex-cop and ex-alcoholic Dave Robicheaux is witness to a plane crash, saves a kid from drowning and before he can say "Gin Ricky", gets involved in a largely obscure drug ring scheme. Heaven's Prisoners is a priceless example of pretty much everything that's annoying you (well, at least me) in mainstream US cinema. Like so many Hollywood action films, it celebrates core American values; that is, family values, abstinence, and doing yourself justice by shooting other people's encephalon out. It is clearly one of those intrinsically fraudulous stories where the whole plot is geared towards a vengeful killing spree, with the inciting incident being the murder, for no apparent reason, of the man's wife somewhere in mid-film (snore). The rest is accordingly shallow. Bubba Rocque, the film's bad boy character, is a pedantic and faggy Latino type straight from the gym. This ridiculous characterisation is only worsened by the fact that Eric Roberts's antics are at best a subliminal impersonation of Karl Lagerfeld gone gumbo. And the big boss man Didi Giancano is, how else could it be, a fat Italian mafioso who speaka no nonsense. The dialogues are as predictable as this year's flood, the pace lamer than a saltwater croc, and the intrigue just muddy waters. Fitting in with that picture, Heaven's Prisoners has inconsistencies and continuity goofs galore. A plane with drug smugglers goes down yet no-one, least something called "the police", seems to care except a (soloist and big-mouthed) FBI agent. After his wife gets murdered, Robicheaux drowns his sorrow in the bar owned by one of the killers (who, as we find out, were actually after him). Protagonists walk into other people's homes as if they were theirs, guys pull their guns in bars without so much as a glimpse by the patrons, men sweat their pants wet but the ladies are invariably spotless, all the joints in the area (a grand total of 2) run the same blues record etc etc. New Orleans could have made for a great atmospheric flick (as, for instance, Parker's depiction of Louisiana in Angel Heart) but it all remains sketchy here. Like the title, come to think of it. Bye-bye, blue Bayou.
Review of Heaven's Prisoners
