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Generations of mob rule are undone by a standard-issue revenge tale in "Violent Ends," a sparing but basically styleless thriller that chronicles a crime family's unremarkable infighting in the boondocks of Arkansas' Ozarks. For his long-in-the-works sophomore feature, writer-director John-Michael Powell maintains a likably low-key interest in the local flavor of his home state, but it's small potatoes in terms of personality. His self-serious approach proves a terminal match for his crime yarn's familiar, simplistic plotting.
As suggested by its title, lifted from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," "Violent Ends" begins with a pair of naive, star-crossed lovers, caught up in a turf war between two households both alike in dignity. Gruff country boy Lucas Frost (Billy Magnussen) has fallen for the buttoned-up bank teller Emma Darling (Alexandra Shipp), a rather inexplicable pairing that the two leads visibly exert their charms to make plausible. They've got marriage on the horizon and kids on the brain, but being a Frost comes with some heavy baggage. The bloodline has split into two parallel cartel businesses, and there's a long family tradition of big-manning and power grabs.
"Violent Ends" lays its scene with opening title cards that recall "Fargo" in their dubious suggestion of a true story, but more function like the "Star Wars" opening crawl, dropping audiences in the midst of a long-waged battle. There's more exposition to come -- more than the powder keg setup really needs. But the fuse is lit when Lucas' swaggering, sociopathic cousin Sid (the always good James Badge Dale) leaves prison, practically licking his lips as he makes plans to take over the family business.
His power play comes crashing into Emma's day-to-day in a standout sequence -- one that's very tense, but also seems unaware of the loaded imagery of a Black woman having a gun pulled on her. The way this standoff ends, which effectively transforms "Violent Ends" into a revenge tale, reeks of convenience. It's a stink the film never recovers from.
It's not that Powell's subsequent approach is immature or distastefully bloodthirsty. The violent ends of "Violent Ends" weren't engineered for spectacle, but instead unfold as matter-of-fact encounters with few flourishes. But the film is similarly spare in its tilt into tragedy, rummaging for dramatic weight in some paper-thin flashbacks and stilted, moral-measuring arguments. They're dull foundations that end up trivializing the story's grim conclusions, wasting the patience the film shows in arriving at them.
It's most acutely felt in Lucas' central arc about re-entering the family business. Magnussen has proven a great on-screen presence, with memorable turns in the indie "Ingrid Goes West" and the blockbuster "No Time to Die." But here, the actor seems less adept at fleshing out the inner turmoil of a man acquiescing to violence, not that Powell puts many words to the character's pain on the page. A pivotal sequence, in which Lucas fully commits to bloodshed, loses its edge by unlocking the character's inner poet for some reason, climaxing with a corny monologue about rattlesnakes. Pitched as a slow burn, "Violent Ends" mostly moves in a series of lurches, hitting one writerly standoff after another and leaving its actors to try to fill in the psychological gaps in between.
Powell had a decent idea in casting a bunch of huffing, puffing bosses and bumbling goons to fill out the Frost family -- enough to make Lucas' pretty boy seem intimidating by comparison. Moreover, the canny ensemble casting suggests the Frost dynasty's precarious state better than the film's dialogue does. If these hotheads are in charge and lugs are doing the dirty work, things really have gotten too sloppy to last.
But "Violent Ends" doesn't make much of an impression outside of such small pockets, even with its emphasis on its setting. Powell, along with DP Elijah Guess, shoot Arkansas civilization like a wasteland: a derelict region of dusty homes and cavernous warehouses. There are some memorable locations -- a dirt track with a bumping nightlife, a greasy spoon that looks hundreds of years old -- but more often, the film's world seems generic and, worse, unpopulated. Who is even buying all the Frost family's drugs? A lot of bodies pile up in "Violent Ends," but the film doesn't convey enough life to earn much mourning.