Michael C. Hall in Cold in July

Fear of Life

Cold in July does a great job of managing the balancing act of making Michael C. Hall both wimpy but not frustrating for the audience. Which is no small feat- there's nothing more aggravating than waiting half a movie for a character to muster the courage to actually move the movie along. The best kind of everyman protagonists don't actually act like real people would, they act 35% better than what an actual person would- they're what we'd imagine we'd be in a crisis. They're able to both freak out and still complete the action sequence, unlike me, who would have a mental breakdown if I ever got caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

One of the smartest things Cold in July does is by not actually making Michael C. Hall that passive, they just have every other character treat him like he's the town omega-male. The police say to him, "must have been scary for a man like you" after he kills an unarmed intruder in his house. The mailman walks into his store and says "heard you got you one last night" with a great mix of jealousy and condescension. The ultimate example of the wuss-ifaction of Hall is that he won't be prosecuted for the killing of an unarmed man under the "Fear of Life" rule. He was legally such a wimp, he can't be held responsible for his actions.

Sir Redvers Buller led British troops in the beginning of the Boer War

Hall absorbs all of this with perfect deadpan pain. He acts like a person who has to deal with this all the time from everyone in this goddamn town. His hair and costume do a lot of the work (in a good way)- he has this wispy mustache and mullet/duck tail combo that seems like he's a low-T Joe Dirt. He tucks in his short-sleeved buttoned up shirts, which is movie-code for nerd, and everything he wears is 3 sizes too big. If you saw this guy, you'd give him a 50/50 chance that his dick just doesn't work.

But he never actually acts like one of those characters in the movie. He shoots and kills a burglar in the first four minutes of the movie. He's never a coward and the movie never lets him wallow- he and his wife almost immediately get to work cleaning the blood and brains from the living room. He's disturbed by what happened, but in a human way, and Cold in July only lets that go on for just enough that you really believe it, before changing gears into a home-invasion horror movie. It lets them have their cake and eat it too- we can relate to Hall as a real person, without having the movie slow down or lose momentum.

Cold in July also makes the incredibly refreshing choice of having him be in a supportive, loving marriage. His wife, Vinessa Shaw, is a great wife. One of the worst movie shorthands for wimp is having a cartoonishly overbearing or nagging partner. It's both misogynistic and just irritating to watch. Hall and Shaw disagree at different times during the movie, but they never scream- they're just adults disagreeing. She is just as reasonably up for the action- she is there with him, wiping up the blood and when the police decide that Hall and Shaw should be bait to catch Sam Shepherd, she says "Let's nail the son of a bitch." Cold in July shows that it respects these characters, even in no one in this goddamn town does.

Boer War Hat

All of these choices really help accelerate Hall's transformation- there's so much less ground for him to make up between loser and hero, but it still feels convincing. Quick shots of Hall and Shaw having to clean up the muddy bootprints that the police made in their house are so efficient at selling the reality. In just a few seconds, the movie reenforces that these are the put-upon people.

By the end of the movie, Hall is wearing jeans. Jeans. He's truly a man's man now. His t-shirt (!) is untucked, just like how Brad Pitt and Steve McQueen wear their t-shirts. No more warm milk- when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he does a kegstand. His dick definitely works now. Hell yeah.