A darkly comic crime odyssey set in middle-of-nowhere America, writer-director Shane Atkinson’s Laroy, Texas wears its Coen brothers influence on its sleeve. And while it never quite reaches the hilarious heights or existential depths of the Coens’ finest work, it does offer similarly enjoyable mixture of the macabre and the absurd.
Atkinson’s film begins with a regular schmuck named Ray (John Magaro) being summoned to a greasy diner and handed an envelope full of photos that show his wife, Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson), cheating on him. It’s devastating information to receive, and it doesn’t help that Ray is hearing it from a guy like Skip (Steve Zahn)—a self-styled private eye who dresses in a bolo tie and cowboy hat, and swears that he’s as much of a detective as any of the other boys on the force, even if he has spelled the word incorrectly on his business cards.
Atkinson’s film begins with a regular schmuck named Ray (John Magaro) being summoned to a greasy diner and handed an envelope full of photos that show his wife, Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson), cheating on him. It’s devastating information to receive, and it doesn’t help that Ray is hearing it from a guy like Skip (Steve Zahn)—a self-styled private eye who dresses in a bolo tie and cowboy hat, and swears that he’s as much of a detective as any of the other boys on the force, even if he has spelled the word incorrectly on his business cards.
- 4/7/2024
- by Ross McIndoe
- Slant Magazine
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