Head Count – Review

This film was screened at the 21st annual Tallgrass Film Festival.

Delivering all of a prison break, a love triangle, and a thriller of escalating tension with comedy sprinkled throughout, Ben and Jacob Burghart’s Head Count is a detour-heavy story of a man just trying to catch a break. It’s funny, it’s awkward, it’s thrilling, and it’s probably about fifteen minutes too long.

We open on Kat (Aaron Jakubenko) desperately trying to remember how many bullets are in his gun. It’s currently pressed to his head and he’s on his knees, sweating and desperately trying to figure out how to get out of his situation. We flashback to a mountain lion attack that results in Kat’s escape from a prison chain gang. One night and one cuck gag later he reunites with his brother, Sawyer (Ryan Kwanten), and his engaged ex, Jo (Melanie Zanetti). His night grows progressively worse as he makes several attempts to escape to Canada and live a quiet life away from the law.

A film beginning in media res is a bold move that I’m not usually fond of. I think the setup here works decently and sets up Kat’s predicament quickly but the constant need to cut back to this Tarantino-esque setting while we move through a neo-Western thriller feels pretty jarring. Jukubenko prevents most of the whiplash by delivering a steady, even-handed performance in a character that’s pretty damn level-headed in the face of death. He’s carrying a film that is fun to watch but begins to drag in the middle.

I really need to highlight the performance of Chris Bylsma as Cassidy, a crooked cop who drags Kat into the best sequence of the film. His unhinged, ridiculous, playing-to-the-rafters performance is the most exciting part of the film and creates such a wild character. His scenes remind me of Blood Simple and bring a much-needed Coen Bros. feel to the entire bit.

Christopher Commons has shot the absolute hell out of this film, with beautiful night photography that ups the tension and helps the film succeed as a Western. It’s hard to make a dark landscape feel like full plains without shooting day-for-night but he’s managed to capture this community and its township with a view that is able to feel dismissive, judgemental, elated, and cruel all at the same time.

Head Count won’t be one that I revisit but it will hit just right with certain audiences. The one unfortunate thing is that the romance is the thing to remove, streamlining the thriller into a taught and tense animal with no fat but a good chunk of the film depends on you buying into this romance. A fun move but one that left me feeling like something was missing and that there was too much simultaneously.