Working with a talented cast the movie Rushlights comes to the big screen in a story that does its best to keep a sordid mystery intact, but never reaches a high level of credibility. Uneven direction and a script with a shaky plot that tries to set up twists sink this ship. On the bright side there’s a very good performances by supporting cast members.
The movie centers on Billy Brody (Josh Henderson) a young man who has a criminal past. One evening at a diner he drops a line on the waitress Sarah (Haley Webb) and ends up taking her to his motel. After a few weeks of dating, Billy gets a frantic call from Sarah and rushes to her apartment to find her roommate dead on the couch from a drug overdose. Billy offers to help her run from the scene and she takes him up on it grabbing some clothes in a carryon bag.
After some time they pull into a hotel for the night and discover that the bag they took was her roommates. Going through her things they find her wallet and a letter from Cameron Brogden (Aiden Quinn) an attorney in Texas naming her as sole heir to her uncle’s estate. As luck would have it, Sarah looks a lot like roommate so Billy helps her hatch a plan of going to Texas and claim the estate. When Sheriff Robert Brogden and his brother Cameron become at odds over the credibility of Sarah, things start to heat up in Texas.
The plot actually starts out to be a good one even though some of the content becomes hard to swallow. As the film progresses it becomes obvious that the story cannot survive due to its predictability so it starts to change direction with the addition of Edward Romero (Crispian Belfrage) Sarah’s roommate’s drug dealer coming onto the scene looking for a cut in the settlement of the will. Here it gets muddy as to how Romeo found the couple and how he knew there was a will in the first place (but for story sake we’ll accept that he must have overheard or the roommate must have told Romeo about the will to placate him over her debt).
But, that’s still not enough to carry the film so the writer puts in several incredible scenes involving the Brogden brothers and their mother. The finale sorts it all out with some wild reasons for the ‘mystery plot points’ and the uncreative ending.
The actors play out the script with their heart on their sleeve trying to interject the needed emotion for their beloved characters, but it’s not enough to save the film from imploding. I like the performances of the support cast, especially Crispian Belfrage as the cagey drug dealer who’s determined to get a piece of the action. His brutal tactics and sexual treatment of Sarah are right up there with some of the work of Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta.
Rushlights has been rated R by the MPAA for violence, language, sexuality and drug use.
Additional Film Information:
- Cast: Josh Henderson, Haley Webb, Beau Bridges, Aidan Quinn and Lorna Raver and Crispian Belfrage
- Directed by: Antoni Stutz
- Genre: Action, Mystery, Crime
- MPAA Rating: R for violence, language, sexuality and drug use
- Running Time: 1 hr 35 min
- Opening Date: June 21, 2013
- Distributed by: Vertical Entertainment
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
