John Hawkes plays an alcoholic ex-cop in "Lost on Purpose" writer & directors Eshom Nelms & Ian Nelms' gritty melodrama "Small Town Crime" who finds himself up to his ears in a multiple homicide case involving blackmail. This 92-minute thriller goes down easy thanks to Hawkes' believable performance and a seasoned cast featuring Robert Forester, Clifton Collins, Jr., Don Harvey, Michael Vartan, Anthony Anderson, and Octavia Spencer. Mike Kendall (John Hawkes of "American Gangster") amounts to a worthless drunk who dreams that the local police department will reinstate him following a shootout where a fellow officer died. The officer had ordered Kendall to remain in the car while he pulls over a speeder. No sooner has the officer approached the driver's door than shots rang out, and the cop keeled over dead. The shooter exited the car and opened fire on Kendall. The dead officer knew that his partner was drunk and didn't want him to exercise poor judgement. Nevertheless, things rapidly got out of hand, and Kendall bails out of the police cruiser as bullets shatter the windshied. Kendall returns fire. Not only does he kill the suspect, but also his bullets penetrate the trunk of the car. Later, the authorities discover the body of a female victim bound and gagged in the back of the suspect's car. She has died from Kendall's bullets that tore through the rear of the vehicle. Unfortunately, Kendall has heard nothing from anything for over a year.
Kendall's day-to-day routine sees him getting smashed and then pumping iron in his garage. Nobody in his neighborhood likes him when he cruises the streets in his souped up Nova that sounds like it has no muffler. Mike has led an interesting life. As a child, his junkie parents kicked him around until human services farmed him out to a loving and compassionate family of African-Americans. In part, this bi-racial upbringing accounts for our Caucasian protagonist having an African-American (Octavia Spencer of "Hidden Figures") as his sister Kelly. Kelly is married to Mike's best friend, Teddy Banks (Anthony Anderson of "The Departed"), and Teddy is a recovering alcoholic like Kelly. No matter what kind of job that Mike applies for, he doesn't get because he shares his history of alcoholism.
One day he finds himself in a pasture after having tied on a real bender. Mike staggers back to his Nova and careens back onto the highway. No sooner has he gone a short distance than he spots the blood-splattered body of a young girl on the side of the road. He races off with her to the local emergency room and later learns the following day that she has died. He takes his Nova in to a car wash to clean off the blood. The owner cleans it up and hands him a flip-phone that he found under the seat. As it turns out, the phone belonged to the dead girl. Suddenly, Mike finds himself taking an interest in the demise of the girl. He learns her name, tracks down her family, and poses as a private investigator so he can learn what happened.
"Small Town Crime" lives up to its name. As Mike embarks on a mission of self-redemption, he decides to work with some of her former police buddies. Along the way, he learns that the girl was no-good from the get-go. She was hooker, and she had been part of an unsavory scheme to blackmail some important people. Those people dispatch a pair of hardcore assassins with ice water in their veins who are intent on killing anybody who had anything to do with the blackmail. Mike winds up working with a pimp and the grandfather of the girl. Mind you, it's nothing big, but it is well-made, extremely well-cast, and it doesn't wear out its welcome.
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