3 Star

The Salesman’s Product

From writer David Ebeltoft (Here Alone, Root Letter) and award-winning writer/director Rod Blackhurst (Amanda Knox, Night Swim) comes a tense tale of what will you do to keep the wolves from your door. With the weather that’s going on at the time of release, make sure you are well togged up. Brrrr.

1992 Boise, Idaho. Mark is in a tight spot, and he decides to take the easy way out, by using a pistol to the head. Fellow Meridian employees Ricky (Kit Harington, The Beast Within, Game of Thrones) and Cliff (Scoot McNairy, Argo, Aftermath) are not happy with this outcome.

Seventeen months later, Cliff is in Sheridan, Wyoming talking to his wife Amy (Nora Zehetner, Brick, Creative Control) on the phone, about how bad his day is and how they are going to finance the future, he is now hocking defibrillators around large business’.

Selling the possibility of escaping a death that may never come is a hard sell.

Where he encounters Don (Travis W Bruyer, Ted K, Yellowstone (TV Series)) who remembers him from his Meridian days, which Cliff vehemently denies, but the word gets back to his present boss who lets him go after Cliff tries to blackmail him into more commission.

 

Cliff, when he does make a sale, has a habit of frequenting the same bar, where he bumps into Ricky who’s doing a lot better than he is. With his hundred dollar bill and a big shiny new pick-up truck.

 

You’re an arms dealer, that sells drugs.

Cliff turns down Ricky’s offer of a well paying dodgy job, and spends the next few weeks visiting his old cohorts and phoning around, but the outcome is the same, no deal.

Well we know where this leads, and soon he takes up Ricky’s offer, and they are off to meet John (Josh Lucas, Le Mans ’66, Glory Road) about gun and drug running, and the fact that Cliff looks like the archetype travelling salesman. What could possibly go awry.

Blood for Dust is a tense thriller with bursts of violence interspersed with the great acting of Scoot McNairy who portrays the mild-mannered salesman far too well, when we know he has a dodgy past. Classic cars, classic drama.

Trust No One!

Blood for Dust on digital, 13 January 2025 (101 Films)