Bad Country

8/28/2022

Bad Country is filled with small pleasures. Like Willem Dafoe’s opening and closing narration (few sounds are as soothing as his gravelly baritone). Or Dafoe’s and Matt Dillon’s badass horseshoe mustaches. Or a cameo by the imposing Bill Duke. Or Tom Berenger’s over the top villain (a rosy-cheeked dandy with a Cajun accent, who walks with a cane he doesn't need, shoots clay pigeons, and lives in a prototypical southern mansion). These are some the hooks on which the filmmakers hang a fairly conventional plot; there’s the cop who doesn't always play by the book but gets results (thankfully we are spared the obligatory scene where his boss takes him off the case and asks him to relinquish his badge and gun), the criminal with the heart of gold who is a lesser evil compared to the real vil