Mob Land

In the world of Mob Land, nothing good lasts. Disappointingly, despite the cast’s best efforts and a few striking visual flourishes, nothing good lasts in the film itself either.

Mob Land is going all in on the deep southern gothic atmosphere. It’s just a pity that the acting is so conspicuously effortful, the plot is formulaic and the pacing drags like a wounded pig at a hog shoot.

Tired, perhaps, but still brutally effective at times.

Mob Land has sincerity, but it can’t beat a bad case of genre fatigue.

Well, it all hangs together and the final shot rounds it off nicely enough.

I'm watched this movie waiting for it to get bad, but it never does.

Superbly acted and heavy on atmosphere, Mob Land is a revenge thriller posing as something more cerebral.

Less yappin’ would have whittled Mob Land down from a bloated 111 minutes, to its benefit. It’s a violent melodrama with a high body count that aspires to backroads Greek tragedy, but instead feels increasingly ersatz.

An intriguingly dark small-town thriller with a compellingly downbeat, nasty edge. It also marks out writer-director Nicholas Maggio as a talent to watch.

Travolta brings little in the way of gravitas to the supposedly sage lawman nearing retirement and facing health issues, but he's marginally less clichéd or cartoon-like than the paint-by-numbers bad guys.