Jim Reed (Tom Berenger), the primary, barely moving part of the backcountry thriller “Blood and Money,” is not a well man. A retired U.S. Marine whose alcoholism has him coughing blood and wheezing every few steps, Jim subsists on cigarettes, peanut-butter sandwiches and an array of medications. Not your typical action hero, you might think, and you’d be right; but that doesn’t stop Berenger and his director, John Barr, from spending the next hour and a half trying to prove otherwise.
A slow start finds Jim and his customized R.V. in the snowy vastness of northern Maine during hunting season. A regular visitor to this wilderness, Jim is ideally placed to click into survival mode when a deer-stalking incident uncovers a dead woman, a bag bursting with cash and a passel of furious thieves. For the rest of the movie, he will engage in a panting cat-and-mouse with a dwindling group of far-heartier pursuers, and some of his dodges will even seem credible. Most of the time, though, when Jim fares poorly in a fight, we’re just glad he’s getting the chance to sit down.
As derivative as its title and as implacable as its declining hero, “Blood and Money” suffers from near-calamitous narrative lapses. The script, by Barr and two others, presents Jim’s crucial connection to a struggling waitress (Kristen Hager) in little more than outline. And by gesturing broadly toward Jim’s painful past without fully cluing us in, the movie provides only the barest justification for his descent into vigilantism. His growing need for a stiff drink, however, is all too easily excused.
Blood and Money
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Rent or buy on FandangoNOW, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
