Lone Star State of Mind (2002)
DIRECTOR: David Semel
CAST: Joshua Jackson, Jaime King, Matthew Davis, D.J. Qualls, Ryan Hurst, John Mellencamp, Thomas Haden Church
REVIEW:
If one happens to stumble across the fairly obscure Lone Star State of Mind, they might not find a lost great film, but an amiable comedy that serves up enough slapstick, twists and turns, and quirkiness to make for a diverting hour and a half, even if it might not linger long in the memory.
The movie basically consists of a couple of bad—and odd—days in the life of Earl Crest (Joshua Jackson). Earl is a sensible enough guy, but he’s surrounded by people who are varying degrees of weird. His relationship with his girlfriend Baby (Jaime King) is the butt of incessant jokes because she’s also his step-sister (though Earl’s running narration is pained to point out that they were already dating before their respective single parents tied the knot). Baby is determined to move to Los Angeles to pursue a flimsy plan of becoming a soap actress. Her dim-bulb cousin Junior (D.J. Qualls), in cahoots with bad seed Tinker (Ryan Hurst) recently robbed a pizza delivery boy and wound up in possession of a bag of drugs and money that they’re selling to Mexican gangsters….which won’t sit well with the other gangsters the drugs and money belonged to in the first place. The man who murdered Earl’s father when he was a kid (Thomas Haden Church) has been released from prison, and might be gunning for him next. Earl doesn’t really want anything to do with any of this, but before he and Baby make it to LA, they might first have to make it out of town alive.
Trevor Munson’s script isn’t anything ambitious or especially original, but it supplies enough one-liners, quirky supporting characters, and twists and turns to keep things diverting, and the eighty-eight minute runtime doesn’t overstay its modest welcome. There’s a couple fairly original ideas, like Earl and his already longtime girlfriend Baby inadvertantly finding themselves step-siblings when their parents tie the knot (leading to Earl chagrined by running jokes about dating his sister). The running joke where Earl’s gay best friend Jimbo (Matthew Davis) continuously ponders whether any of the henchmen they’re running into might be gay gets a little old, but if the movie’s going to throw in a token “gay sidekick”, he’s at least a trusty gun-toting right hand and not a wimpy stereotype (in fact, Jimbo is basically treated as the most “normal” person in the movie apart from Earl himself). The movie throws a whole batch of bad guys at Earl and company, including Mexican drug dealers, a crime boss (Sam McMurray) who wants his money back, and the bumbling duo of Junior and Tinker, as well as the lurking peripheral presence of Earl’s father’s killer (Thomas Haden Church), who’s just been released from prison and, Cape Fear-style, has Earl’s name tattooed on his fingers, which keeps things busy enough to keep moving at a decent pace, though by the time we get to a couple climactic generic narrow getaways and shootouts, one senses the movie is out of things to do and running on autopilot to get to an ending.
Part of what drags the proceedings down a little is that Joshua Jackson does nothing to liven up the thankless role of the “straight man”, and plays Earl so terminally laid-back that he’s pretty dull. The supporting cast juices things up a little, with D.J. Qualls hilariously stealing scenes as the dim-witted Junior and John Mellencamp getting some amusing moments as Earl’s stepfather. Ryan Hurst goes way over-the-top as Tinker, to an extent that’s sometimes hilarious at first but ultimately wears thin.
Ultimately, Lone Star State of Mind serves up a lot of wackiness but it doesn’t ever really amount to much beyond the modest level one might expect from a television sitcom (which is, unsurprisingly, director David Semel’s background). But for an eighty-eight minute mild diversion, it might be adequate, if that’s about where it stays.
* * 1/2