12 Hour Shift

Entertaining from start to finish and wonderfully played by a largely female cast, David Arquette has a small role as an escaped convict, Grant’s film beautifully upends the sexist notion that women are naturally inclined to nurture. It surprises, too, as a tribute to the fortitude of working-class women.

12 Hour Shift doesn’t allow for quite the same kind of bravura showcase that Bettis gave us in “May” — Grant’s film, while plenty deranged in its own right, is nevertheless grounded in reality — but it still depends on the actor’s genius for being loathsome and lovable at the same time.

Grant’s screenplay builds a Rube Goldbergian narrative of escalating, piled-up crises, from which she also engineers a just-credible-enough exit strategy.

Bettis is perfectly cast as Mandy, her hazy disaffection to the increasingly bloody mayhem she has to deal with is best described as nonplussed irritation. Other performances are hit and miss.

It’s a throwaway film that perhaps I shouldn’t have enjoyed as much as I did, but Mandy is such a deliciously sour character.

Actress turned director Brea Grant (TV’s “Eastsiders”) serves up a pungent, gory goof of a nurses-gone-bad comedy, dark as dirt and corrosive as Clorox.

In this context, Farnworth’s appropriately broad performance is exceptional. She doesn’t have much dialogue that’s worthy of her playful, all-in line readings, but Farnworth deserves all due praise.