Violent Ends; the title of John-Michael Powell’s gritty southern crime drama comes from an unexpected place. It’s taken from a line in William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, alluding to a passionate romance that ends in tragedy, and it doesn’t take long to see why Powell chose it. A love that burns hot, an intense family squabble, and bloody retribution are at the heart of this rare crime film that effectively crams an entire legacy of conflict into two powder keg hours. That it also boasts a transformative performance by Billy Magnussen and a terrifying one by the always-reliable James Badge Dale, makes Violent Ends a smalll movie worth seeking out.
I call it a “small” movie but you’d never know it. Powell pulls an effective masquerade job so that Violent Ends presents as a bigger-budgeted studio movie. The film begins by detailing the complicated web that connects the Frost clan, a family of criminals that dominated the Ozarks drug trade until a violent feud split them into factions. Now it’s hard to find anybody in town who isn’t in some way a blood relation to the Frosts. It’s almost Shakespearean the way the cycle of violence just keeps getting passed along from generation to generation, and how local law enforcement, even when led by a Frost, can do nothing to stop it.
We’re so accustomed to Billy Magnussen as either a comedic foil or a snarky villain that it’s initially weird to see him as the scruffy-faced and deadly serious Lucas. He’s done all he can to distance himself from the family business, and tries to keep his half-brother Tuck (Nick Stahl) on the straight and narrow path, with the help of their mother Darlene (Kate Burton) who is the town sheriff. All Lucas wants to do is settle down with the love of his life, Emma (Alexandra Shipp), so they can get married, have kids, and get the Hell out of dodge. But early on, Lucas’ imprisoned father warns him that he’s a chip off the old block whether he likes it or not; “You’re a rattlesnake.” This premonition becomes true quicker than expected when Emma is gunned down during a robbery, and Lucas recognizes one of the killers as a Frost family member, and takes it upon himself to exact vengeance on his own kin.
Powell effectively captures the allure of small-town rural communities; the slower pace of life, the local events that become neighborly bonding experiences; the feeling that you are never far away from someone willing to help. Just as effective is the flip side; the corrosive rot of drugs and financial hardship, the continuing creep of crime and violence spurred on by growing hopelessness.
That hopelessness is what makes Lucas’ story so tragic, because he seemed to have found his way out with Emma. He had a dream, and a plan to make it happen, but instead is drawn by sadness and anger into a conflict he had long sought to avoid. And nobody gets spared in this battle. The Frost body count runs incredibly high when a gruesome bloodbath unfolds, escalated by the return of Lucas’ deadly cousin, Sid, a swaggering psychopath played by Dale.
While the slower pace matches the speed of small-town life, Powell manages to keep Violent Ends gripping from one tense moment to the next. One of the subplots that interested me most was that of Darlene, who as a cop finds herself in the middle of her warring family, often with her own life on the line. There are more than a few scenes where it looks like she’s about to end up on the business end of a shotgun, killed by one family member or the next.
While many filmmakers look to make their name in the genre by mimicking Quentin Tarantino’s early work, Powell seems inspired by the mafia films of Martin Scorsese and the muscular thrillers of Taylor Sheridan. Violent Ends is a small-scale crime drama that feels like one of Scorsese’s crime epics. The story is almost entirely driven by men fueled by rage, jealousy, grief, loyalty, and obligation. There’s a certain sadness that anyone born into the Frost line never really stands a chance of breaking free from it. This is a double-edged sword because while family will always be there for you, sometimes they’re there to stab you in the back. With the Frosts, the violent ends always justify the violent means.
It’s a shame that the wealth of mediocre, low-budget crime dramas will make Violent Ends tougher to find because it’s one of the best to emerge from this genre in years.
Violent Ends is in theaters now from IFC Films.
