Laroy, Texas: Occasionally Excellent Diet Fargo

Ray is a coward. In fact, he's so cowardly that the writers of Laroy, Texas didn't even dare to give him a last name he could bring shame upon. Cowardly Ray works at a hardware store because he likely and incorrectly thinks it makes him more manly, and whenever anyone so much as stares at him funny, he lies down to take whatever emotional beating they may or may not mete out, too scared to ever stand up for himself. By some miracle, he got married at some point in his life, and has unsurprisingly just discovered that his wife is having an affair. So, he makes what is in his pitiful mind the only rational decision: buy a revolver, drive to the parking lot of a seedy motel, and blow his brains out. And this right here is the moment where everything changes for him. You see, in the parking lot of that backwater motel, poor little cowardly Ray is mistaken for a contract killer, handed several thousand dollars that could turn his life around, and thrust into a dangerous world that offers him a deadly back alley deal that could possibly net him the respect he didn't know he desired.

If my groundswork for what to expect from this movie sounds grim, make no mistake: Laroy, Texas is actually a very funny movie. The featured humor is excellent and multi-dimensional, evocative of a season of FX's Fargo. But Laroy, Texas is also a dark movie, and some incredible cinematography by Hu Mingjue enforces this memo, making excellent use of contrasting colorful and strategically-placed light with an inky darkness that seems to swallow everything it touches in a way evocative of Roger Deakins's excellent, Oscar-nominated work on Sicario. But despite playing with the black parts of the frame, the visual storytelling of Laroy, Texas doesn't seem to lose itself amidst the darkness, managing to be simultaneously funny and sad without undercutting either emotion. It helps that the jokes in this movie are legitimately funny, while the sadness is contrarily played with the deepest sincerity. What's more, it can occasionally elicit emotions other than sadness and joy, namely appaled disgust - in a good way. One extremely tense scene that does so features a gun, a hostage, a hammer, and some fingers: use your imagination.

I like how much of a loser Ray is. It's an amusing charicature that also carves out a straight path forward for character development, as the only way Ray could possibly go is up - hopefully way up. I was interested in seeing where Laroy, Texas would take Ray, whether it would double down and somehow make him more cowardly than he already was or turn him into some kind of stone cold killer, whether it would make him a better man or a worse one, and I was surpised in many ways by how the movie works as both a positive and negative character arc for Ray. As his confidence increased, there also arose an increased willingness to make some truly cold-blooded choices, and I was simultaneously and increasingly proud of and disgusted by him as the movie progressed.

To tack some criticisms on Laroy, Texas, it's scene-to-scene directing is quite strong, but its slow burn can border on meandering. The movie knows where it's going, but it's in no hurry to get there, and isn't willing to "kill it's darlings" often enough, which means that it doesn't want to get rid of awesome individual moments in the movie that don't advance the story meaningfully enough. Despite clocking in at under two hours, Laroy, Texas is still way longer than it should be, and you feel it. However, despite some pacing speed bumps, the strong characterization and wonderful acting do enough to carry it through the weaker parts of its story, and I love how poignantly and thoroughly it ties up the journeys of its characters. I must say, the last ten or so minutes of this movie is incredibly smart cinema that brings a closure to the movie more final than a wind-swept grave in the Texas desert.

There's a really good movie to be found here somewhere, that's for sure. Oftentimes, it's seen clearly. Other times, it's obscured by temporarily paper-thin or less-than-relevant narratives. Does that movie have to fight with underdeveloped subplots? Yes it does. Does that movie have to work past some directorial obsession with some of the more unnecessary darlings in this movie? Also yes. But to the credit of Laroy, Texas, when it works, it really works. It's visually stunning, very well-acted, often hilarious, and best of all, keenly interested in Ray's struggles, in his building of character as well as his paradoxical corrosion of it. It's a movie that probably would have benefited from drafting a couple of extra subplots, but for what we got, this is far from bad. It just touches greatness often enough to make you wish it was better.

Laroy, Texas - 7/10

Hebrews 13:4