Galveston

Laurent’s film is gripping throughout. The filmmaker shrewdly frames each scene to convey the characters’ loneliness and isolation without being too obvious.

What we are left with is far from a perfect film, but Laurent is a confident director who elevates the pulpy plot of Pizzolato’s novel into a unique reflection of characters on the margins of society. It, also, probably doesn’t hurt that she has Foster and Fanning at the top of their game to deliver the material.

Laurent walks between pulpy suspense and a more serious grimness as she presents the action.

Director Mélanie Laurent and actors Ben Foster and Elle Fanning bring some seedy poetry to Galveston, a muted crime drama that runs out of plot too soon, but makes up for it with powerhouse performances and a finely shaded sense of place.

The actors are game, the action beats are handled with skill. But the story lacked shape.

The film is a slow, directionless anti-thriller that never manages to build tension or establish any stakes.

The pitch-black and paper-thin Galveston not only fails to find a way to reinvent, or at least refresh, that old tired idea, it also piles a few more tired ideas on top of it.

Galveston has some artful cinematography, but even the talented cast and a perfectly paced edit can't defer from its weaker screenplay and numerous spattering of uninspired plot ideas.

For the most part, Galveston doesn't show you anything you haven't seen before: a dying hitman saves a hooker with a heart of gold, there's a troubled child, a motel, is he truly a good man? etc., etc. The upshot here is the performances really elevate the tired material and it's quite enjoyable... until it takes an unmotivated, brutal left turn that destroys the film and seemingly exists only to say "ha ha, got you!" to the audience.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

(Mauro Lanari) Pizzolatto changes his name and uses a pseudonym to distance himself from the director, but the more I watch works taken from his manneristic screenplays, the more I think the 1st "True Detective" was an exception.