Laws of Man, 2025.
Written and Directed by Phil Blattenberger.
Starring Jacob Keohane, Jackson Rathbone, Dermot Mulroney, Harvey Keitel, Keith Carradine, Graham Greene, Kelly Lynn Reiter, James Urbaniak, Forrie J. Smith, Greg Kriek, David DeLao, Ashley Gallegos, James Roseman, Johnny Hoeft, Alex Javo, Cody Howard, Al Pagano, William Shannon Williams, Jason Damico, Chase Gutzmore, Christopher El, Tony Gibbons, Michael P. Walker, Scott Hunter, Harrison Bunch, Rafael Velasquez, and Richard Brake.
SYNOPSIS:
Two U.S. marshals pursue a wanted murderer in the deserts of Nevada.
It’s acceptable, sometimes welcome even, for a film to devolve into preposterous stupidity. Writer/director Phil Blattenberger’s Laws of Man does just that but questionably waits until the final 15 minutes to do so. The preceding 80 minutes feign interest in telling a story about a pair of war veteran US marshals, with one affected by a clichéd traumatizing incident on the battlefield. All this is wrapped up in mildly amusing action beats, such as a prologue that sees these servicemen in a shootout while trying to issue a warrant to a psychopathic criminal.
Frank Fenton (Jacob Keohane) is the straight-faced professional of the two, asserting that his excitable partner, Tommy Morton (Jackson Rathbone), carries out the procedure by the book. Ambushed by a small-time gang led by Crash Mooncalf (a suitably chaotic performance from Richard Brake to be expected from the material) and stuck in an armed standoff, Tommy eventually makes a move that allows them to take their target dead, much to the chagrin of Frank reiterating that they are supposed to be taken alive.
That’s the small-fry objective in their two-part mission into the middle of nowhere in Nevada. Set at an unspecified time in the 1960s (a great deal of what’s going on is associated with the specifics), Frank and Tommy have also been ordered to deliver an arrest warrant to a murderous land grabber named Benjamin Bonney (Dermot Mulroney), who, along with his violent sons, is going around terrorizing locals into lowering land prices he believes to be rightfully his. Aside from the danger involved with entering that territory, the job sounds simple enough, at least until it turns out the arrest warrant has mysteriously been lifted.
This also gives our protagonists time to go their separate ways at night, with the more happy-go-lucky Tommy flirting with a woman (Ashley Gallegos) in a nearby bar. The ensuing late-night sex in the adjacent motel room keeps Frank awake, who heads outside and meets a traveling stoner preacher named Cassidy Whittaker (Harvey Keitel), who spends most of his screen time biblically rambling about Joshua and his journey to Gilead, which correlates to some internal struggles the US marshal is going through. An unnecessary amount of this is also expanded upon through flashbacks that are not only amateurish, unconvincing depictions of war but do not fit the ludicrous nature and revelations of where the narrative is ultimately headed.
That’s also frustrating since Phil Blattenberger momentarily appears to be onto something engaging, touching upon PTSD and how Frank is trying to contain the worst side of him that the horrors of war brought out (not to mention some survivor’s guilt failures), but how his current occupation occasionally demands him to draw from that viciousness. Also talked about when quickly ignored are conversations regarding colonialism and the cycles of war.
It also becomes abundantly evident that Frank is the only protagonist Laws of Man is mildly interested in as a character, as the longer the film goes on, the more Tommy is shortchanged in unintentionally hilarious ways. By the end, one questions what his insertion into the narrative adds other than the usual opposite personality juxtaposition these types of movies typically have.
Some federal agents also arrive on the scene, including one played by Keith Carradine. Their presence fits into the ongoing mystery of how the warrant on Benjamin Bonney was removed alongside a further investigation into the erasure of every piece of incriminating evidence as soon as it surfaces. Anyone hoping for moderately compelling answers considering the grounded setup will be let down and flabbergasted by what Laws of Man is actually about. One wishes the film also had the decency to remove all the bits suggesting that the film has something more character-driven on its mind. Here’s a new law: if the plan is to go full stupid, set that tone or expectation earlier rather than masking the narrative as something more serious.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
