RED RIGHT HAND

Red Right Hand’ Review: The new Deep South-set crime thriller from sibling filmmakers Eshom and Ian Helms (Small Town Crime, Fatman) feels like such a throwback to the exploitation films of the 1970s that it should feature American International Pictures at the top of the credits. Starring Orlando Bloom, the latest British actor to showcase a hard-wrought Southern accent, Red Right Hand doesn’t add anything particularly new to the well-worn genre. But it features enough bloody action sequences and shootouts to satisfy fans, who will be more likely to catch it on VOD than at drive-ins.

The British actor plays the lead role of Cash (all the characters have names like that), whose macho bona fides are established in the opening sequence in which he’s shown doing shirtless pull-ups and push-ups, his chiseled musculature clearly earned the hard way. Cash seems to be a decent sort, still mourning his sister who died of a drug overdose and watching over his alcoholic brother-in-law Finney (Scott Haze, bringing the role surprising depths) and teenage niece Savannah (Chapel Oaks, Will Trent) who’s clearly learned to fend for herself. Cash is the kind of guy who immediately pitches in to help a foal undergoing a difficult birth.

But Cash wasn’t always so gentle and law-abiding, since he was once an enforcer for the rural Kentucky area’s local crime boss Big Cat (Andie MacDowell). The film’s title stems from his scarred right hand, the result of a burn ritual he underwent for her, shown in flashback. As is soon made clear, Big Cat still resents Cash’s decision to quit her employment and straighten out his life.

Unfortunately, his past comes back to haunt him when Finney turns out to be deeply in hock to Big Cat, who sends her goons to inflict some physical damage. When Cash goes to her palatial mansion to confront her, she coolly informs him, “When I have to send a message a second time it comes with more volume.”

Cash agrees to work for her on a few jobs to erase his brother’s debt and quickly finds himself once again enmeshed in violence, including a drug deal that goes south and becomes a bloodbath. Big Cat proves that she’s as ruthless as ever, personally cutting off one offender’s finger and taking a deputy sheriff prisoner and torturing him before shooting him dead. “Take him out back and feed him to my dogs,” she instructs her underlings, sounding like a Bond villain.

Things get even worse from there, leading to more bloodshed that eventually involves even the plucky Savannah, who proves she’s no slouch with a shotgun. Cash forgoes his previous gentleness to go into full badass mode, aided by the town’s extremely macho preacher Wilder (Garret Dillahunt, rocking a shaved head), who has a checkered past himself. When Big Cat challenges the preacher as to how a man of faith can get involved in such violence, he calmly explains, “I’m more the Old Testament type. Eye for an eye.”

Unfortunately, such clever lines are few and far between in Jonathan Easley’s workmanlike screenplay, which is not particularly enlivened by the Nelms brothers’ sluggish direction. Running 111 minutes, the film feels draggy, lacking the snappy pacing of films like Macon County Line and its ilk.

But the film’s real problem is miscasting. Bloom is perfectly fine as the stalwart, soft-spoken hero seeking revenge, but MacDowell never proves remotely convincing as the ruthless female baddie. Despite her considerable charms and talent (check out her sterling work in the recent Netflix series Maid), MacDowell’s determined efforts here come to naught, although she’s less to blame than the filmmakers who presumably thought casting her against type would be effective. But what else can you expect from the guys who previously cast Mel Gibson as Santa Claus?