The first half of American director Jim Mickle's southern noir "Cold in July" is altogether uninteresting, proving it takes a lot more than just thunderbolts, creepy, inarticulate old men and incompetent police officers to get the home invasion horror right. And purposefully going overboard on the cheese factor by recycling, magnifying familiar genre elements doesn't automatically make you cool, either, because that too has long been done. With a major change of course and the introduction of a new character halfway through the film, things do turn significantly for the better, leading the way to that promised final bloodbath, but overall nothing groundbreaking here.
This whole movie is a little silly, really, what with the synthesizer blazing gleefully in the background as people get ready to kill one another. The filmmaker is most likely aware of the ridiculousness and actively pursues it, but without a corresponding sharp sense of pacing and aesthetic, a self-deprecating B-movie stays a B-movie and it can only go so far. Which is not to say it won't find an audience. With liberal use of rifles, unhindered exercise of private justice and senior citizens acting tough in cowboy hats and wife-beaters, it doesn't get much more red state than this, and I'm sure that's all gravy to the steak-eating cinemagoers. You just wish there'd be a little more original idea, snappier execution and better characterization for the rest of us as well. Of the actors, Don Johnson is the obvious scene-stealer, bringing much-needed humor to the otherwise leaden proceedings.
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