Confirmation that January scrapes the bottom of the barrel for film releases, “The Baytown Outlaws” is as run-down a piece of cinematic tripe as you would expect. Checking in on the waning careers of Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria, newbie co-screenwriter/director Barry Battles does neither actor any favors.
Also burned at the altar of filmic crap is Thomas Brodie-Sangster (“Nanny McPhee”), who once seemed to have a bright future ahead.
A Tarantino-knock-off of the lowest order, “The Baytown Outlaws” announces its shoddy intentions with an opening blood bath sequence that is a study in bad taste. Good old boy Alabama redneck siblings McQueen (Travis Fimmel), Lincoln (Daniel Cudmore), and Brick Oodie (Clayne Crawford) dole out shotgun justice for local Sheriff Henry Millard (Andre Braugher). If they accidentally off the wrong bunch of lowlifes, so what?
Enter slinky Celeste (Langoria) to bait the scuzzy bunch with $25,000 in bounty money them to extract her 17-year-old wheelchair bound (and mute) son Rob (Brodie-Sangster) from the clutches of her well defended drug kingpin ex Carlos (Thornton). Rob’s trust fund is about to come due on the boy’s 18th birthday. Killing Carlos is part of the assignment. Clichés surface like flies on manure. A fancy-pants ATF detective from Chicago rattles Sherriff Millard’s cage. The snotty Sherriff, in turn, spares no opportunity to insult and snub the Northern intruder.
The Oodie boys botch the kidnapping inasmuch as they leave Carlos alive to send his thugs after them. The story collapses into a chase-and-battle adventure that leave much blood smeared on various surfaces. Here is a movie that will last one week at your local cinema. Even that, is one week too long.
Rated R. 98 mins.
ZERO STARS
