Cornbread Cosa Nostra:
Written and directed by Travis Mills
This is the second film that I've seen from filmmaker Travis Mills. The first one Blood Country I loathed with a serious passion. It made little to no sense. It had a ton of characters but no real character development. It felt so long. Now I say this because Cornbread Cosa Nostra does improve on those things. It made sense. It was longer but didn't feel longer. It could have benefitted from being a longer movie. The problem is this movie still has a lot of problems.
There are too many characters and none of them are given any character development whatsoever. The main FBI agent is a block of wood. He stares off in the distance to pine for his problems. He does little to no actual investigating. He just happens upon things. He's a dull character and the actor seems lifeless behind his eyes. His love interest also falls into this trap. They fall in love supposedly but there is no chemistry there. I don't understand the attraction that they have. They are just lifeless.
Now not everyone suffers from this problem. This movie does have out there characters like the Mayoral candidate with the ridiculous blonde wig who throws out some Trumpisms. The villains have their one moment and then they leave the movie. It drags us through a decade worth of important events that seem no more than mere footnotes. Things happen that should have more resonance but just don't. This of course brings me to the elephant in the room.
The murder scene. A big politician is murdered and it fuels the remainder of the story. There is no character development for this person. Their importance to the FBI agent is briefly implied. I think she was helped with his investigation into the Dixie Mafia. It was unclear and they only show the aftermath. This is a huge missed opportunity. I feel like if we had seen the murder, the threat and menace of the Dixie Mafia would have been more palpable. Travis Mills could really learn a thing or two from Martin Scorsese. This is definitely a Scorsese type of movie.
I think visually Travis Mills is a superb director. He knows how to paint pictures on the screen. When it comes to actors, he has no clue. They can't all be pensive, blank slates. The same goes for writing. Character development is so important. It's painfully obvious when it is lacking. It always seems to be lacking. Too many characters who have little to no bearing on the plot. We could have used some scenes where the FBI agent and his girlfriend tell secrets about each other as you see falling in love. We could have used scenes where he does some investigating. He needed scenes with him interviewing suspects. We need scenes where his desperation starts to get to him as he can't seem to nail any of them down despite their rather loose connection and reckless behavior. This movie is a mess but it's better than Blood Country and the short he wrote accompanying it Handsome. I give this film a D.
