The Big Ugly

A wildly entertaining, over-the-top, blood-soaked, noir-Western from director/co-writer Scott Wiper that’s filled with stunning visuals of the breathtaking and sometimes foreboding countryside (with Morehead, Kentucky, standing in for West Virginia) and searing performances from the ensemble cast.

The Big Ugly is a fascinating beast. While the premise of the film sounds annoyingly trite, writer-director Scott Wiper develops an engaging batch of characters.

While not exactly rote, the script undeniably feels a little derivative in places.

What makes The Big Ugly watchable are the authentic locations and the veteran actors who bring admirable conviction to their tough guy roles.

It’s oh-so-familiar terrain, yet writer-director Scott Wiper lets a deadening sense of inertia creep in, leaving the payoff feeling like a Guy Ritchie movie played at the wrong speed.

It plays like several plots, genres and mood boards all mashed together, which makes the end result interesting but not entirely successful.

Stupid scene follows bloated speech, all the way through to a finale set up to go off, but which fizzles like soggy fireworks.