King Ivory

Seen from the perspective of a law enforcement officer, the heads of a criminal network and its victims, John Swab’s kinetic, pulse-raising thriller details how fentanyl is crippling the American heartland and pushing US society perilously close to the point of collapse.

Narcotics officer Layne West faces an uphill battle to keep the opioid crisis from turning Tulsa, Oklahoma, into a war zone. Addiction also hits close to home, with his high-school-aged son, Jack, himself a fentanyl user. The city’s drug operation is overseen by Native American Chief and gang leader Holt Lightfeather from his penitentiary cell. His latest enforcer, American-Irish mobster Smiley, who carries out his orders with ruthless efficiency, has been charged with ensuring the steady flow of drugs from the local Mexican cartel. But the stakes are rising and the battle between the law and the forces of disorder spills out onto the city streets.

Echoing the world-building structure of Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, but focusing more on the actions of characters than any ideological perspective, John Swab’s propulsive thriller combines the tropes of a police procedural with the blood-splattered, viscerality of grindhouse cinema. It’s an incendiary mix, made all the more powerful by a career-best performance from James Badge Dale as West, while Ben Foster and Melissa Leo shine as Smiley and his equally terrifying mother Ginger. Cinematographer Will Stone’s hand-held camera and Andrew Aaronson’s fast cuts keep the action tight, as Swab draws us inexorably into this deadly world.

– Ian Haydn Smith