TURNABOUT * U.S.A. 2016 Dir: E.B. Hughes. 90 mins
We open with a troubled man, Billy Cain (George Katt,) who attempts to suicide one night with sleeping pills and throwing himself off a bridge into an icy river. It doesn’t work and, in a desperation, climbs out and reaches a payphone to call an old high school buddy Perry Hayes (Waylon Payne). It’s after midnight, but Perry reluctantly leaves his wife and child to help out his old friend. Needless to say, the night is young and Billy doesn’t simply want to go home. They head to a diner, where Billy beats up a rowdy kid in the bathroom. After that Billy decides its time to head to a strip club and grab some drinks. Our protagonist doesn’t put up much of a fight and his initial glee of living like a youth starts to turn sour when they soon get involved with strippers, drugs and people start to die. It’s one crazy night but this is played out so slowly with tons of obvious dialogue. The whole film only runs less than ninety minutes but each one is felt. The first half an hour or so is watchable enough but once they reach the strip club you can see where things are going and they go there in slow motion. I was waiting for some interesting turn of events, but in vain. This plays out more like a 1990’s direct to DVD title. The performances are fine as is the camerawork and direction, but its the leaden script that really brings this down.
Review by Ben Underwood
TURNABOUT is available on Amazon