Blood and Money

It may not quite reach the heights of Fargo, but if you enjoyed Cold Pursuit or the inferior-but-similar Daughter of the Wolf, then Blood and Money will be right up your dirt road.

If only Blood and Money weren’t stretched so thin. More development of character, suspense and plot would have gone a long way toward making this stick to one’s crime genre-loving ribs.

Cinematographer turned director John Barr serves up a generic thriller: the title lets you know that what you’ve got on the label is what you’ve got in the can.

A sludgy action thriller with an out-of-shape star, Blood and Money doesn’t have a lot going for it other than its setting: the uncharted north Maine woods in the dead of winter.

From its generic title to an ending you can see coming from outer space, Blood and Money follows a path rutted with enough clichés to cover the three million acres of Maine forest land where the film is set.

As derivative as its title and as implacable as its declining hero, Blood and Money suffers from near-calamitous narrative lapses.

The story’s over-familiarity isn’t the best reason to skip Blood and Money. Its messaging is. And whatever butch points Berenger earns for getting the job done in extreme conditions at an age when “don’t slip you’ll break your hip” has to be a concern are squandered on a film that isn’t worth it.