Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff are sad-sack brothers Frank and Jerry Lee Flannigan in this adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s 2006 novel, directed by Alan and Gabe Polsky. It’s easy to remember the Hirsch character’s name, because every line of dialogue seems to be appended with it: “That’s quite a story, Frank.” “What are you doing here, Frank?” It’s a Raymond Carver-y tic that mostly serves to underline the film’s paucity of character development.
The Reno-based brothers, who live in a seedy motel, are forced to skip town after the hapless Jerry, driving drunk, hits and kills a boy on a bike. Things go downhill from there as Jerry contemplates suicide but loses his nerve and shoots himself in the leg — the leg that’s already missing a foot. A lot of whiskey is consumed, a bunch of lowlifes consorted with. Hirsch and Dorff give it their all — as does the always-welcome Kris Kristofferson, as a boss and father figure to Frank — but they can’t make up for the screenplay’s shortcomings.
Not surprisingly in this tale of desperate men, the only women are top-heavy cartoon characters — literally, animated sequences illustrate Frank’s stories — or live-action betrayers, like Dakota Fanning’s Annie, Frank’s ex-girlfriend. I found the cartoons more interesting.