[Film Review] Thunder Road (2018), The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020), The Beta Test (2021) and The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023)

Who is Jim Cummings? An up-and-coming generalist (director, actor, scribe, composer and editor) emerging from US indie cinema, with already 4 features under his directorial belt. A golden boy blessed with tradition good looks and Waspish appeal, Cummings makes a splash with his second feature THUNDER ROAD in 2018, a wiggy comedy about grieve and parenting, expanded from his 2016 one-take short of the same name, which is followed by THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW (2020) and THE BETA TEST (2021), venturing into two vastly different genres: werewolf horror and digital-age conspiracy. After that he lends his presence in Francis Galluppi's debut feature THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY (2023), a high-concept neo-Western sneering at America's gun violence, countrified cupidity and lawlessness.

In THUNDER ROAD, Cummings plays police officer Jim Arnaud, who is whacked by a double whammy of his mother's passing and a nasty custody battle (although he isn't mean-spirited, aiming for a joint custody in spite of his lawyer's incredulity), whose career and personal paths veer to a cul-de-sac as his sober days are over and his anger issue escalates. Cummings kills the opening gambit, a re-enactment of his short but with a difference (without the titular Bruce Springsteen's song), which underlies a cracker-barrel kookiness that is both disarming and bewildering (you may start to question Jim's sanity). However, the about-face between teary-eyed and maintaining a strong face is too comical to register any deeper sympathy, a tic which Cummings seems to curb in his later projects.

Drollness aside, THUNDER ROAD commits steadfastly to canalize Jim's seething anxiety and rage via Cummings' farcical and somehow bumptious mannerism (a scene between Jim and Macon Blair, who plays the teacher of Jim's daughter, is quite a capper of losing-it). It lands on its feet as Jim ironically regains the custody of his daughter Crystal (Farr, balancing out Cummings' clodhopping attitudinizing with an air of natural nonchalance) when all seems lost, not to mention that unorthodox slap. Cummings gingerly treads the fine line between misogyny and trashing an unworthy mother.

Cummings' deputy sheriff John Marshall in SNOW HOLLOW is embroiled in a similar bind. A member of the sandwich generation, John juggles between heeding to his ailing father, Sheriff Hadley (Forster, in one of his last roles), who is beset with a death-dealing heart problem, and walking a tightrope with his college-ready daughter Jenna (East), as he endeavors to mend their frosty relation after his divorce. Meantime, the sleepy ski town is plagued by a series of grisly murders apparently at the hand of a werewolf. Actually, John is the one who roundly rebuffs such hogwash since the onset, even audience is tricked to believe so (the monster literally shows its beastly figure when dispatching the second victim). With the significant help from the punctilious Detective Julia Robson (Lindhome), John will catch the culprit after the cases are closed, the last-minute revelation is a time-honored trope Cummings has no intention to cast aside.

For all its genre conventions, SNOW HOLLOW is shy of a roller-coaster ride and spookiness. Like THUNDER ROAD, it pivots on its protagonist's pressurized anguish and the dreadful sense of everything is getting out of his hand. But Cummings appears to be treading water here. All the blood-splatting, snow-bound visual onrush only leaves a sweeping impression that the film, compared with THUNDER ROAD, is less praiseworthy,

THE BETA TEST, co-written, co-directed and co-starred with PJ McCabe, ditches the small-town insularity to the Hollywoodland infested with eroticism, spousing-icing menace and darknet sinisterness. Sleek and silver-tongued Jordan Hines (Cummings), a high-flying (seemingly so) Hollywood agent, is about to get hitched with Caroline Gaines (Newcomb). While trying futilely to woo a Chinese mogul (Wilky Lau, who cannot pose as an echt Chinese as his mandarin is very poor, by extension, the film's portrayal of Chinese is rather distasteful), Jordan caves in to an anonymous letter luring him to a tryst in a hotel room. He is further intrigued by the mysterious woman with whom he has an amazing sex in blindfold.

When the letter stops, Jordan's life begins to turn topsy-turvy as he goes off the deep end to scope out who is behind all the shenanigans. Only the explanation leaves much to be desired. Jordan is completely tongue-tied when the malefactor mouths off about the all-knowing infiniteness of internet and the culpability of unscrupulous ciphers like him who can remotely manipulate and extort others like nobody's business. Like Jordan, Cummings and McCabe's film is unable to retort, as though the script doesn't know how to lacerate such enormity, nor it sheds enough light on the practicalities of operating a scam so grand. When Jordan finally comes clean to Caroline, and vice versa, scarcely anything has changed in the lie of the land. Sad to say, THE BETA TEST winds up as a nonevent although one can begrudgingly acknowledge Cummings' endeavor to branch out.

THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY is a no-frill situation thriller. Waiting for a gas station's pumps to be refueled, a motley of characters are marooned in a diner abutting the station. Among others, there are two bank robbers, Travis and Beau (Logan and Brake), with the plunder still lying inside the trunk of their car, a kitchen knife salesman with no name (Cummings) and Charlotte (Donahue), the diner's sole employee. Random local customers including an unknowing police officer Gavin (a baby-faced Paolo), the gas station attendant Vernon (Love) and an Indian ranger Pete (Proudstar). "You will die for our rhubarb pie", that is an ominous catchphrase.

The tension eventually leads to a deadly Mexican standoff which involves 5 guns shooting among sundry parties, leaving the salesman the only survivor (not before he must put his knife into good use). Will he inform the police or abscond with the money? The film comes off as a telling exemplum of how easy avarice can corrupt even a decent soul (the salesman is again, a single father en route to see his young daughter). Think on his foot, the salesman is compelled to rub out two unfortunate passersby and avoids the pursuit of the grieving sheriff (Abbott Jr.), who is Charlotte's husband. Imagine, what good outcome could that brings? YUMA COUNTY is a lean, highly entertaining fare that suggests Galluppi might have a better place in the sun than Cummings apropos of manufacturing genre works.

Through the tetralogy, Cummings the actor has successfully established a unique persona: high-strung, angst-ridden, incoherently gabby when he is nervous, all grafted upon the substratum of a fairly ordinary human being. He is most magnetizing when he brazens himself out of an embarrassment. However, behind the camera, Cummings' craft has yet to be differentiable from other journeymen in the field. Although the jury is still out as it is far too early to predict Cummings’ futurity, one simply hope his final destination is not a jack of all trades and master of none.

referential entries: Lawrence Michael Levine's BLACK BEAR (2020, 6.2/10); Josephine Decker's SHIRLEY (2020, 7.6/10); Michael Sarnoski’s PIG (2021, 7.2/10); Emma Seligman’s SHIVA BABY (2020, 7.5/10); Carter Smith’s THE PASSENGER (2023, 6.8/10).

Title: Thunder Road

Year: 2018

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Director/Screenwriter/Music: Jim Cummings

Cinematography: Lowell A. Meyer

Editors: Jim Cummings, Brian Vannucci

Cast:

Jim Cummings

Kendal Farr

Nican Robinson

Jocelyn DeBoer

Macon Blair

Chelsea Edmundson

Ammie Masterson

Bill Wise

Jordan Ray Fox

Shelley Calene-Black

Rating: 6.7/10

Title: The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Year: 2020

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Comedy, Horror, Mystery

Director/Screenwriter: Jim Cummings

Music: Ben Lovett

Cinematography: Natalie Kingston

Editors: Patrick Nelson Barnes, R. Brett Thomas

Cast:

Jim Cummings

Riki Lindhome

Robert Forster

Chloe East

Will Madden

Jimmy Tatro

Skyler Bible

Annie Hamilton

Hannah Elder

Kesley Edwards

Anne Sward

Demetrius Daniels

Kevin Changaris

Chase Palmer

Rating: 6.2/10

Title: The Beta Test

Year: 2021

Country: USA

Language: English, Swedish, Mandarin

Genre: Drama, Mystery

Directors/Screenwriters: Jim Cummings, PJ McCabe

Music: Ben Lovett

Cinematography: Kenneth Wales

Editor: Jim Cummings

Cast:

Jim Cummings

Virginia Newcomb

PJ McCabe

Jessie Barr

Kevin Changaris

Jacqueline Doke

Olivia Grace Appelgate

Wilky Lau

Lya Yanne

Malin Barr

Christian Hillborg

Rating: 5.8/10

Title: The Last Stop in Yuma County

Year: 2023

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Crime, Thriller

Director/Screenwriter/Editor: Francis Galluppi

Music: Matthew Compton

Cinematography: Mac Fisken

Cast:

Jim Cummings

Jocelin Donahue

Richard Brake

Nicholas Logan

Faizon Love

Michael Abbot Jr.

Connor Paolo

Gene Jones

Robin Bartlett

Ryan Masson

Sierra McCormick

Jon Proudstar

Barbara Crampton

Sam Huntington

Alexandra Essoe

Rating: 6.9/10