Complete A-Z list


Southern Fury

0/10

Stars: Adrian Grenier, Nicolas Cage, Johnathon Schaech, John Cusack, Heather Johansen, Lydia Hull

Director: Steven C Miller

Fists and bullets find their targets in slow motion: blood and bone spurt everywhere. No, this isn't a film about riots over UK train strikes, but an appalling mess that features a career-worst (even for him) performance from Nicolas Cage, complete with false moustache, false nose, bizarre wig and dialogue seemingly shovelled from somewhere round the back of his throat.

The setting: the blue-collar district of Biloxi, Mississippi, where straight-arrow PJ (Grenier) runs a construction business, providing well for his wife (Hull) and baby, while ne'er-do-well brother Mikey (Schaech) scrapes a living from various shady deals, finally borrowing $10,000 from his brother and blowing it on drugs to deal, being promptly robbed of his stash.

Local crime kingpin is the psychotic Eddie (a quite ludicrous Cage), who devises a plan to pretend to kidnap Mikey, proposing to split the proceeds with him when brother PJ coughs up.

When Mikey refuses, Eddie and his goons take him hostage anyway, setting the scene for a final, rather unconvincingly staged bloodbath, in which virtually all you can see is bullets tearing into flesh. There's lots and lots of slo-mo, plus one of the most gratuitous (and shortest) sex scenes you're ever likely to see. Truly disgraceful - even a film about rail strike riots would be more pleasant.

David Quinlan

USA 2016. UK Distributor: Signature Entertainment. Cinecolor.
97 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 18.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 1, Swearing 3.

Review date: 19 Feb 2017