New Blood

Michael Hurst's blood-soaked directorial debut only sounds like a vampire flick. This violent tale of a heist gone sour is indebted to Reservoir Dogs and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but trades the jagged humor and colorful personalities of those films for an unremittingly dark ambiance of duplicity and double-crosses. The plot hinges on a rather implausible premise: grief-ridden father John Hurt agrees to pose as a wealthy kidnap victim for his estranged son (Nick Moran), a doomed punk car thief, and in return the kid will donate his heart to save his dying sister. The twist is that Hurt will not come out of this alive and he knows it--just part of the fractured dynamic of guilt and vengeance between father and son. That's actually only the first of many twists in a devious little thriller where practically everyone has an ulterior motive and a complete lack of scruples. Hurst's script, told almost entirely in a quilt of flashbacks within flashbacks, is built on a shaky foundation of dubious logic and unlikely behavior: more than contrived, it's downright unbelievable. But his execution is sound: he winds up the long night of scheming lies in a chaotic graveside shootout and a smart, satisfying, quietly redemptive conclusion. Joe Pantoliano costars as a ruthless crew leader with a wild white mane of hair, and Carrie-Anne Moss is the cool, calculating heist mastermind. --Sean Axmaker