Everyone in The Devil All the Time cast needs to hire new agents.
Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Eliza Scanlen, Jason Clarke and others embarrass themselves in this unimaginative adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s novel, a pointless exercise in depicting multigenerational Appalachian strife and a colossal waste of time and talent.
Co-writer/director Antonio Campos’ hapless follow-up to his marvelous Christine recycles a drab collection of post-World War II hillbilly clichés and prioritizes character-building over storytelling, yet only keeps a few players around long enough to make an impact.
The film’s assortment of hard-luck Ohioans and West Virginians, hypocritical preachers and crooked cops engage in and/or fall victim to predictable bad behavior, which is almost always followed up with sneak-attack, fistfight retaliation that’s apparently meant to offer some sort of sage commentary on the inescapable nature of violence. (Or maybe this is Campos’ idea of a good time?)
If that repetitive nonsense wasn’t sufficiently mind-numbing, the filmmaker also squeezes in one of the least interesting serial killer narratives possible to tie together otherwise disparate arcs, part of a doomed effort to compensate for the lack of engaging material with an eye-rolling “small world” convergence of these dull characters.
All of what happens on a physical and psychological level can be comprehended by a toddler, but Campos nonetheless recruits Pollock to spell out precisely what these cardboard cutouts have done and are thinking via some of the most overbearing voice-over narration in recent memory.
Toss in suspect accents from non-American actors and a bloated, 140-minute run time, and there’s no reason to add this dud to your Netflix queue.
Available on Netflix starting Sept. 16
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