A solid (if conspicuously handsome) cast does justice to the grim mood of Cipoletti's sophomore feature, but that mood sometimes suffocates a script that deviates little from genre expectations.
While the story’s nothing special, the world of Desolate is memorable, with its tribal rivalries and sleazy black markets. It’s a vision of the end-times that disturbingly resembles the dying small towns of America in 2019.
Slogging along from one slaughter to the next, a benign narrative unfolds about a family of savages hell-bent on their own self-destruction, with no redeeming qualities.