If Netflix was going to film a pilot for a 21st century reboot of “The Rockford Files,” it would probably look a lot like “Small Town Crime.” Only instead of an ethically challenged ex-con in a 1970s muscle car, we’d have an ethically challenged ex-cop in a 1970s muscle car. The rest is pretty much the same with John Hawkes taking over for Jim Garner as the wisecracking gumshoe with the quirky relatives and a penchant for always getting in over his head with pimps, dead hookers and the wealthy grandfathers who love them.
The result is a decidedly mixed bag, but what the movie lacks in originality is offset considerably by Hawkes and the obvious good time he’s having playing a charmingly adorable sad sack half-heartedly attempting to free himself from the bottle. His Mike Kendall is like no one you’ve ever met – or ever will. He’s purely the creation of an over-imaginative screenwriter trying much too hard to be cute; or, as is the case for brothers Eshom and Ian Nelms, two screenwriters.
It’s clear from the start that neither has affection for realism, as we watch Mike tackle a typical day of looking for work (He was booted off the police force.), picking up an unemployment check and kicking off a hard night of drinking by attending an A.A. meeting with his brother-in-law, Teddy (Anthony Anderson). Yes, irony is a big part of the Nelms’ repertoire, and it can test the patience. But then that’s the M.O. of the writing-directing team. They like to push boundaries, and they do it freely because they know they have Hawkes to always bail them out with his easy smile and folksy charm.
Still, there are moments when Hawkes overplays the part of the lovable drunk, making it difficult to take his Mike seriously in what amounts to a 90-minute search for redemption. One moment he’s as goofy as a cartoon character and the next he’s as cunning as a fox. There’s no middle to anything he does. It’s always all out, but you sure like tagging along, as Mike risks what little collateral he has left with his adoptive sister, Kelly (a sinfully underused Octavia Spencer), and his former comrades on the police force by taking it upon himself to solve the murder of a young woman he finds lying on the side of the highway.
The task is as dangerous as it is foolhardy, considering the kind of lowlifes the girl was mixed up with. He also has a habit of repeatedly getting in the way of the real homicide detectives (Michael Vartan and Daniel Sunjata), both well aware Mike was drummed out of the force because of his excessive drinking. The problem is that none of it is the least bit plausible, as the Nelms brothers ask us to believe that Mike can so effortlessly pass himself off as a private detective, even to the dead girl’s rich, vengeful grandfather (Robert Forster), who is so snookered he pays him $2,500 a week to find the perps.
Like the old “Rockford Files,” which gave “Sopranos” creator David Chase his start as a writer, “Small Town Crime” offers the promise of encountering dozens of winos, losers and other various miscreants, chief among them a Hispanic pimp (Clifton Collins Jr.) in a 1970s’ Impala lowrider who is pure stereotype. But then the Nelms brothers aren’t the least bit interested in character development. Even Hawkes’ Mike is pretty much as enigmatic at end as at the start.
What does interest the brothers are vintage cars (They love featuring shot after shot of Mike peeling out in his souped-up 1970 Chevy Nova) and action scenes, most of them poorly executed chases and shoot-outs. The one constant, though, is Hawkes, who is so much fun you’d follow him anywhere, even through a flat-footed crime caper riddled with more clichés than bullets.
Movie review SMALL TOWN CRIME (R for strong language, violence and some sexual references.) Cast includes John Hawkes, Octavia Spencer, Anthony Anderson, Robert Forster and Michael Vartan. Grade: B-