LITTLE DIXIE

US, 2023, 105 minutes, Colour.

Frank Grillo, Eric Dane, Beau Knapp, Annabeth Gish, Peter Greene, Thomas Dekker, Mercedes Mason, Sofia Bryant.

Directed by John Swab.

The title sounds like a pleasant little ditty from the American South. It is from the American south, from Oklahoma, with writer-director, John Swab dramatising his home state. But it is not a pleasant little ditty.

This is one of those B-budget action films that are very popular with aficionados, once upon a time straight-to-video, now turning up on streaming.

For audiences with more delicate sensibilities and sensitivities towards screen violence as well as towards brutal narratives, not their film.

John Swab has worked with Frank Grillo on a number of similar films – and Frank Grillo has worked on how many more similar films. Here he is Doc, specialist operations expert, helping the governor, Eric Dane, for his political promotion, advised by Annabeth Gish, channelling money from the Mexican cartels. The film opens with the governor and Grillo as Doc, present at the execution of one of the cartel gang – which leads, of course, to retaliation, numerous deaths, and, surprisingly for our possible sympathy with Doc, his doing a lot of the killing. The cartels have given him a motivation by abducting his daughter.

So, there are the Mexican mansions with the wealthy cartel leaders, the processing of the drugs by almost naked women, and gay bar and the death of a singer, a final showdown in Mexico.

While a lot of this may well be based on fact, for many it is ugly viewing.