Story Structure in Cold in July

Directed by Jim Mickle. 2014. Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall) shoots and kills a burglar in his home. The police identify the burglar as Freddy Russell, a wanted criminal. Freddy's father, Ben Russell (Sam Shepherd), recently got out of jail and begins threatening Richard and his family for killing his son. After several break-ins, Ben is arrested, but when Richard goes to the police station after the arrest, he sees a picture of Freddy Russell and realizes that that's not the man he shot. Richard saves Ben's life after police officers drug him and attempt to kill him.

Richard and Ben start working together to figure out what the police are covering up and where Freddy really is, with the help of Ben's private investigator friend Jim Bob Luke (Don Johnson).

There are a lot of stylish genre movies, and maybe that's what Cold in July is, but it just seems weirder to me. It's looks like a lot of movies I've seen but it just doesn't feel like a lot of movies.

It's not a macho-fantasia like a Nicolas Winding Refn movie, or some artistically deconstructed noir film like Point Blank. Those movies tend to be straight-forward, familiar stories layered with extreme cinematography and art direction.

There's also the Memento/Pulp Fiction branch of stylish genre movies, where revolves around a complex story (or at least ones presented in a complex way.) They're also usually familiar stories, but they've been narratively chopped and screwed for freshness.

Cold in July is like, somewhere in between. It's shot with a deliberate style, with a great soundtrack, but it's not overwhelming. It's also got a complex narrative, but not in the sense that it's a puzzle for the audience, but more that it doesn't have a normal, coherent story structure. It's like 3 different movies stitched together, like if From Dusk Till Dawn wasn't a gimmick. And it works, even though, sitting here, I don't think the pieces actually fit together.

That's the part I can't really explain- it isn't a good story, because none of the pieces really fit, or if they do, I haven't been able to parse it. But I love it. It's really really good. The movie shifts at each act break from a home invasion thriller, to a mystery/conspiracy movie, to a grim action movie about a father reckoning with what his son has become. It's weird as hell.

I tried to plot it out as an emotional arc or journey, but I can't make it work. Part of it is because I am not even sure the main character (Michael C. Hall) is the main character. He spends most of the third act just hanging around while Sam Shepherd emotionally processes devastating news he learns about his son, and then just tags along to the final action set-piece. Was Sam Shepherd the main character of the movie this whole time?

This isn't just sloppy writing, it's a very conscience decision by the film, and I think that that's what I really love about it- it just works differently than most movies. There's literally a scene where lightning flashes and Sam Shepherd appears in a room like Jason, but then a few scenes later, him and Michael C. Hall are a mismatched detective combo, trying to solve a mystery.

But it all feels coherent. Which is a testament to the strong direction and acting- the atmosphere and mood that the movie creates holds up through all the tonal shifts and Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepherd, and Don Johnson's performances all seem so lived-in that you never doubt them. Or at least, I never did. And that's what's most important.

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The Boer War started in 1899 because of tension between the British territories of Cape Colony and the Colony of Natal and the Boer states of Transvaal and the Orange Free States. One of the biggest reasons for the tension was the discovery of huge amounts of gold in the Transvaal, that at its peak accounted for 30% of the world's gold supply!