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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 408705" data-attributes="member: 23">In The Electric Mist (2009) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fm.media-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FM%2FMV5BMDk0NzY2NGItMDQ2NC00NTBkLWJjMDEtODQ1YTFkNzVmNTk5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTExNzQ3MzAw._V1_.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b8615d0602f42d180d6c16d7f8e4e3990279edd5446c6e1b26bf3e02a6af6f06&ipo=images" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />One of those spontaneous viewings, with the film randomly plucked from a shortlist of titles leaving Prime in the next few days.I read a bit of the description but didn't clock the protagonist's name, so was pleasantly surprised to find I was watching a film based on an entry from James Lee Burke's Robicheaux series. This series had been recommended to me many years ago and I bought one of the novels but couldn't get into it, which I felt a little bad about.Curiously, this film is based on the sixth novel. It's also not the first Robicheaux adaption: Alec Baldwin had previously played the character thirteen years earlier in an adaption of the second. I have no idea whether or not Electric Mist is the ideal starting point, but as a standalone piece it worked. If anything, any baggage from groundwork done in previous stories added texture here and I didn't feel I was missing anything apart from what the writer wanted to audience to feel they were missing (if that makes sense).Describing the film's appeal is difficult. There's a lot that really should have been a struggle. The diction was a biggie: not just the thick accents of the characters, but the lack of enunciation. A key characteristic of the Southern drawl - as presented here, at least - is the tendency to mumble. It felt like most of the time characters were pushing dialogue downwards into their own chests, where it would become forever distorted and lost. Subtitles for an English-speaking film are an anathema to me and I didn't use them... but I think I may have have understood the plot better if I had.Casting was really good overall. Tommie Lee Jones was suitably world-weary, and I think I've underestimated his acting talents as he gave a really nice performance*. Mary Steenbergen was a comforting presence, while Ned Beatty was practically unrecognisable compared with other works in which I've seen him. The weakest links in the cast were the actresses playing the actress (ironically) and Robicheaux's daughter (who just felt too much like a kid who knows she's in a film and wants to be endearing). Neither was bad... they just weren't up to the standard of those around them. Mileage will vary on whether  or not John Goodman being ever-recognisable as John Goodman is a good thing for the film, but I was invested enough in the story for it to work.Even with the odd obstacle, I found the entire thing absorbing. The Louisiana settings are full of character and quite attractive, which contrasts nicely with some brutally ugly goings on and language. There was something curiously comfortable about the film and even though it didn't overtly wow me, I still feel I could settle down and watch several more just like it.* As fine an actor as Alec Baldwin is, I can't help feeling he was too young and too pretty in 1996 to play a character written as a grizzled fifty-something. Image searches for Heaven's Prisoners bear this out. I'd probably still be up for watching it, though.</blockquote>

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