MISSISSIPPI GRIND (Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden) 108 minutes. Opens Friday. See listing. Rating: NN
Where to watch: iTunes
Over the past decade, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have established themselves as makers of socially conscious character studies like Half Nelson, Sugar and It’s Kind Of A Funny Story.
Their latest, Mississippi Grind, is designed along the same lines, but it overplays its hand at the cost of the drama. The filmmakers are more interested in environments and social structures than in exploring what drives their protagonists – or letting those characters do anything surprising.
Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn are fully invested in their roles as a pair of gamblers working their way from Iowa to New Orleans, but there’s only so much they can do: Reynolds does a variation on his standard charming rake, while Mendelsohn’s pitiable soulfulness will be familiar to anyone who saw him in Bloodline.
Without a pulse, the road movie rhythms become monotonous – each new stop is just another chance for the characters to screw up and start over – and the references to 70s gambling pictures start to feel like affectations rather than commentary.