4 Star

Blind Love, Death and Money.

Award-winning writer/director Shane Atkinson (Penny Dreadful (Short, The Ambassador (Short)) moves from shorts into feature films. Penned by himself, he brings us a twisty tale of a dedicated husband, a hitman and a wannabe detective, with lots of other shenanigans going on. A hilarious romp in the Texas heat.

On a dark and lonely road, Harry (Dylan Baker, Happiness, Selma), a weaselly looking man, drives along and sees a pickup truck at the side of the road. He spots a lone man trudging down the dark road. As he slows, the man steps out in front of the car and gets in, then a strange conversation takes place between them. Later, we see Harry answering his phone. “Where’s LaRoy?”

Ray (John Magaro, Past Lives, The Big Short) is a meek mannered man who runs Jepson’s hardware store with his slimy brother Junior (Matthew Del Negro, The West Wing (TV Series), City on a Hill (TV Series)). He walks into the country café because he was sent a note to meet someone at 1p.m, that someone turns out to be Skip (Steve Zahn, Sahara, War for the Planet of the Apes), a man with his own sense of style. The reason for Skip calling in Ray is that he is working as a private ‘Detective’, and whilst on a stakeout at the local seedy Motel, he took pictures of Stacey-Lynn (Megan Stevenson, Get Shorty (TV Series), Review (TV Series)), Ray’s wife. Ray doesn’t believe that there is anything untoward going on and refuses to believe what Skip is saying about his sleazy philandering ex-beauty queen wife.

Even though he doesn’t believe it, it depresses him and with thoughts of suicide, he buys a revolver to end it all. Late at night, he pulls into an empty car park and thinks about doing the final deed.  Just as he is about to pull the trigger, a pickup truck pulls up next to his car. Distracted, he waits for the truck to leave, but the next second his passenger door opens, and a man gets in and throws a wad of cash in his lap, and tells him that the job has to be done tomorrow, and what method he is going to use to get rid of the man that lives at 1010 Poplar.

With that amount of money in his lap, he could fulfil Stacey’s dream of opening a beauty salon. Perhaps there is more to this.

We won’t be just cutting hair, we’ll be changing lives.

Just watch the adventures of Skip and Ray and the residents of LaRoy, Texas, with blackmail, murder, theft, and adultery. Great fun.

It’s a kick-ass adventure.

LaRoy, Texas will be available on Digital Download from 12th April