Before Captain Marvel: Mississippi Grind (2015) - Reviewed

The latest entry in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe, the recently released Captain Marvel, continues to make noise on all sides of the tentpole movie spectrum both positive and negative.  There hasn’t been a day that has gone by where fans and detractors haven't stopped talking about it.  As with most MCU pictures the film thrust the married writer-director couple Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck into the mainstream and yet even now their previous film together, the A24 released Southern fried gambling addiction drama/nonjudgmental character study Mississippi Grind, remains a criminally overlooked gem and throwback to hard boiled buddy dramas akin to Midnight Cowboy or Easy Rider 

A meat-and-potatoes no nonsense buddy drama of two gambling addicts, Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) and Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), who meet on a fly and decide to try and make a big score together if they don’t race each other into bankruptcy first.  More than anything, it’s a nonjudgmental character study of two lost souls, one of whom is a go-getter mostly able to stand on his own two feet, the other a pathetic loser who can’t help but drown himself deeper into insurmountable debt.  Mostly it is about Gerry, a down-on-his-luck parasite who is liable to make Eric Roberts’ turn as Paul Snider in Star 80 look strangely benevolent by comparison. 

At first glance Mississippi Grind from the poster image of Mendelsohn rolling the dice suggests the prototypical debonair cool gambling casino film ala Ocean’s Eleven or Rounders, all of which changes the moment we come into contact with Mendelsohn in the context of the film.  Watching Mendelsohn, who gives a staggering performance as a perpetual borrower of money in far more dire straits than Robert De Niro in Mean Streets, you know you’re watching an actor and yet feel as if you’re in the presence of a vagrant firmly planted in the ass end of a decrepit bar in the red light district. 

Simply put, Mendelsohn looks the part and was born to play characters like these with this being one of his most nuanced and complex.  Ryan Reynolds exudes his trademark suave cool and yet throughout the film we’re allowed numerous moments of his true colors showing, furthering the co-dependency of the dysfunctional kinship Gerry and Curtis hastily formed.  Like Easy Rider and arguably even Five Easy Pieces the film is something of a scattershot episodic road trip boasting a variety of memorable cameo performances including Sienna Miller and a memorable turn from the great Alfre Woodard.  Like the aforementioned American road movie classics, neither the film’s two largely unlikable but fascinating protagonists know if they’re coming or going.

Loosely based on Robert Altman’s California Split and borne largely out of the writer-director couple’s downtime spent in Iowa riverboat casinos during a break from production on Sugar.  Capturing the richly southern homegrown American aesthetic is renowned cinematographer Andrij Parekh who previously collaborated with the filmmakers on It’s Kind of a Funny Story, highlighting the worn down cornerstone bars you’d find peppered throughout small town America.  Scored by Blake Snake Moan and Hustle & Flow composer Scott Bomar interspersed with an eclectic mix of blues and classic rock, musical montage features heavily in Gerry and Curtis’ aimless journey through the southern Midwest towards the unattainable dream of a big score that will set both men for life.

Something of a slow burn less interested in advancing plot developments than trying to sink its teeth into the hearts and minds of two reprobates trying to find purpose and meaning in their lives, Mississippi Grind might be my personal favorite Mendelsohn role for just how head-over-heels desperate and broken he comes across.  One gets the sense seeing Gerry sink in over his head into debt that some people in life are simply beyond help and will take what they can from you as long as it gets them through another day. 

Sometimes it can be very hard to watch as we’re asked to both pity and despise him with one truly awkward and humiliating scene involving Gerry’s tepid reunion with his past.  This is not a light most actors would be comfortable being seen in, yet Mendelsohn takes this unruly bull by the horns and truly rides into the sunset with it.  If you’re curious to know just why Ben Mendelsohn is among my favorite character actors working in film today, look no further than Mississippi Grind!

Andrew Kotwicki