Little Dixie

Why do we keep getting Frank Grillo movies? Who asked for this mediocre actor, who can barely move, to be an "action" star. This is just like every other movie with Frankie. Dull, phoned-in, little substance, no acting ability, and I presume, way over budget for what you get.

But, this movie is nothing new. There is nothing novel introduced here. It is the same as every other single action movie within the last 40 years; flashy. And that's all. There is no substance.

And, good lord, we have to sit through another bumbling attempt at reading lines by Frank Grillo. Stop already with Frank Grillo. He isn't an actor in any sense of the word except that people keep putting him in roles. He must be doing it for free.

There was an attempt by the rest of the cast though, so I won't rate it too low. They probably didn't know Frank was in it until it was already too late to back out. That is the only reason I see people working with him. See how they snuck him into the Avengers movie? I did too. That's why I think he's somebody's nephew.

As a fan of both John Swab's work as a director so far and Frank Grillo I was looking forward to this. It didn't disappoint. Little Dixie is in the vein of things like Too Old To Die Young and Brawl In Cell Block 99 a slow paced methodical thriller that has you on the edge of your seat for the majority of the runtime.

As I said before I've been a fan of Frank Grillo for a while and if this was the 1980's I think he would be a huge star. He possesses all the qualities a movie star should have. Great looks, great actor and is charismatic and likable. Aside from having a leading role in two of The Purge movies Grillo has mostly been relegated to B movies where he's either criminally underused or completely wasted. With the exception being his collaborations with Joe Carnaghan in Boss Level and Copshop who knows Grillo is a skilled actor and charismatic and likable and puts him front and center and knows how to use him properly. Little Dixie proves that John Swab is the only other director Grillo has worked with so far that knows how to use him properly. He's front and center here and his name is the only one on the poster. Despite the cast containing some other recognizable names in Eric Dane and Annabeth Gish they don't overshadow Grillo or move him to the sidelines. Beau Knapp also gives a good performance here as the terrifying cartel member "Cuco".

I reckon Eric Dane might wish he had stayed on his last ship after his stint as Governor of Oklahoma here ends rather more abruptly than he might have expected at the hustings. He cannot resist a good old gloat when his administration sends the brother of a Mexican drug lord to the chair. The uneasy truce that has existed thus far is now ended, and his assistant "Billie" (Annabeth Gish) and her fixer - and his wartime CO - "Doc" (Frank Grillo) have tightropes to walk whilst "Miguel" (Maurice Compte) decides how best to exact revenge. That involves his sexually ambiguous and brutal brother "Cuco" (Beau Knapp) who decides, quite cleverly, that he will kidnap the daughter of "Doc" and force him to do their dirty work for them... What now ensues is just poor, sorry. It's like a video-shoot 'em up game with bodies falling all over the place and little if any jeopardy until the last few minutes when, even then, the ending has precious little by way of surprise. The plot itself is pretty preposterous and the acting does little to inject any real sense of menace to this procedural, repetitive and over-long training video for would-be ten year old assassins. I wouldn't bother if I were you.

One of the bigger discrepancies from avg rating to mine (4.9 vs 8). I wanted simple straightforward action, it said it was simple straightforward action, it gave me simple straightforward action. I am satisfied.

Not a crazy plot, but a badass you can cheer for. It lives up to the trailer. I am surprised the people who gave it such a low rating watched it, it's not like it pretended to be one thing and showed you another.

Sometimes I like simple bad ass getting the bad guys. It didn't have a lot of lulls. It's right in line with what you think a Frank Grillo movie would be, a bad ass kicking ass.

Enjoy, have fun.

Now, I had actually not heard about this 2023 action thriller from writer and director John Swab prior to sitting down to watch it. But with it being an action thriller with Frank Grillo in the leading role, there was a certain expectation for it to hopefully be a fair enough movie.

The storyline in "Little Dixie" turned out to be watchable for what it was. However, it was a rather generic and somewhat predictable action thriller. So writer and director John Swab didn't exactly bring anything new to the genre, but instead opted to play it safe and utilize every single trobe of the how-to-make-an-action-thriller-guidebook. But hey, if you are a hardcore action thriller fan, then you will find some enjoyment here, of that I am sure.

The acting performances in "Little Dixie" were fair. You know what you get with Frank Grillo, and he did carry the movie adequately here, despite of not having much to work with really. It was also nice to see the likes of Peter Greene and Annabeth Gish on the cast list. I wonder what writer John Swab was thinking when he created the Raphael 'Cuco' Prado character, as it was the epitome and caricature of a Mexican gang member. And the way that actor Beau Knapp walked, talked and his entire body language was just an exaggerated caricature of something you would see in a gang related computer game. It was just difficult to take that character serious.

There was a fair amount of action in the movie, at least to keep the otherwise mediocre storyline afloat. And it was actually nicely enough executed action sequences.

All in all, then "Little Dixie" was suitable for a single viewing, though you're not in for anything grand. There simply isn't sufficient contents to the storyline to support more than a single viewing, however.

My rating of "Little Dixie" lands on a very bland five out of ten stars.