Review of Mississippi Grind (2015) by Lisa M — 07 Oct 2015

Being a movie that greatly relies on actors can be a wonderful, refreshing type of movie. It's so nice to see movies that work wonders thanks to their lead performances in addition to a good script, like any Joe Swanberg movie or a lot of micro-budget indies.

Although it isn't without its charms, Mississippi Grind isn't one of those movies. It isn't because of the performances--this may be the best work that I've seen from Ryan Reynolds--but this is a script that could have been cut of at least twenty pages.

It has bits that work very well, but it ultimately feels a tad more repetitive and slow than interesting. Mississippi Grind isn't a long movie--it's 108 minutes. This, however, is a movie that should have been really short, and by really short, I mean 90 minutes at most.

Move this scene here, tighten up this character relationship, cut out these scenes, and end the movie five minutes earlier. It's that sort of movie, one that is kind of sabotaged by its runtime and the idea that absolutely everything matters.

The relationships depicted between Reynolds and Mendelsohn matters, as do their character backgrounds, and they do a good job with that. Their individual tics and quirks matter, and those are conveyed really well.

The southern style that permeates the film also matters, and the movie really benefits from it. It's a really slick movie in terms of its aesthetics and music choice. It just so happens that all of these things are often being chipped away at by the feeling that this movie does too much of the same thing for about twenty minutes too long.

There are also some minor issues with choppy editing, but again, this movie is so Americana that those are easy to overlook. So although Mississippi Grind benefits from all of its performances and its direction's ability to create a very precise mood, it's still another movie where a good amount of scenes don't seem to contribute to the overall experience and the pacing ends up making an otherwise solid movie just okay.

It's far from bad and it definitely isn't a waste of money, but it's kind of easy to see why this was released by A24 through DirecTV as well as in a limited theatrical release as opposed to just theatrically like some of their other gems.

I'm excited to see what Reynolds brings to Deadpool and how Mendelsohn's career materializes here in America, but this ultimately acts more as a demo reel for how well they can perform rather than a strong movie overall.

6.3/10, okay, one thumb down, below average, etc.