Mountain Mafia

I came across a free Roku channel I added at some point and had forgotten about. Started watching a movie called Mountain Mafia, made in rural Kentucky. A fellow comes back from Iraq a grizzled veteran. He becomes a hitman for local drug runners. I didn't really follow plot in spite of the narration.

It had a large cast of guys, all the same type, around the same age and about three women who were around the same age as the men although one was playing the star's mother.

It was terrible. Just terrible.

Although I should admit that I turned it off after twenty minutes, so, as far as I know, only the first twenty minutes were terrible.

It was reasonably well-made. They had a lot of guns. I don't know if they were real or airsoft. We see a Nissan Sentra blow up and several people shot and killed. A murder victim is dismembered. We see a grown man running across a field. How many adults can run? If I were to run in a movie, I would film myself from the waist up in front of a green screen moving my arms. I would do it as a special effect.

Here's a behind-the-scenes video.

First screening was in Lebanon, Kentucky in 2010. According to the 2010 census, the population was 6,331.

Now I feel like watching the rest of it.

I was a little disappointed in the violence and the main character didn't have a clear goal. I think the filmmaker should have sat through the films of Aleksey Balabanov a few times, like Orson Welles watching Stagecoach over and over before directing Citizen Kane.

And here, I think, is an important lesson. When everyone in your movie is the same age, sex and race and speaks in the same regional accent, the audience knows your age, sex, race and region of origin. Keep them guessing. Always throw in a few old people and maybe some teenagers. Try to have an even mix of men and women. And, this is a different matter, but if you're filming in Kentucky, throw in a snake handling church.