Plot: After a night of hanging out goes terribly wrong, friends Zeke and Earl try to cover up the death of their friend Dick, the circumstances of which could mean horrifying results should anyone find out.
Review: The great truth about humanity that should unite us all is that no matter who you are or where you're from everyone has something to hide. The brilliance of THE DEATH OF DICK LONG lies in how it hones in on that key truth by centering itself in a humid Southern atmosphere, tossing in an unexpectedly hilarious, idiosyncratic sense of humor and building to a shocking revelation to earnestly explore just how far people go to hide themselves.
Coming off his bizarre first feature, SWISS ARMY MAN (co-directed with Daniel Kwan), director Daniel Scheinert takes a few steps back from the wildly strange and fantastical approach of that film – but not too many steps back. Set in a small Alabama town, Scheinert paints an authentic of picture of the South and centers on three best buds – Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.), Earl (Andre Hyland), and Dick (Scheinert) – who live for beers, vaping, hanging out, and practicing covers of 00s-era alt-rock songs for their sorry excuse for a band, Pink Freud. This easy-going life is interrupted when – as the title promises – Dick ends up dead after a night of hangin’, and the other two have to cover their tracks in ways they can best remember from seeing it done it in the movies.
The kinds of people Zeke and Earl are the ones who are often the butt of jokes in any array of films. Such characters are often spitting tobacco and are meant to come off as blatant dopes who chug Mountain Dew, and that image has seeped into the very real American psyche. Anyone who hasn't spent time in the South uses that as a caricature for the people who live there, and may not think it that far from the truth. But Scheinert means to show these two blue-collar Southern men as being no dumber and no smarter than anyone else from any region, finding a thoughtful, hilarious way to show them trying to keep their lives in check after a tragedy.
But, yes, the way they go about that is indeed very dumb. Whether Zeke is trying and failing to cover up a bloodstain in the back of his car by just throwing a blanket on it, or with Earl trying to play it cool when dropping off Zeke’s daughter at school but coming off as hopelessly awkward, the two can’t help but be oafish at every step. Targeting a typical brand of male masculinity, they burry their feelings about what happened to their friend, and act only to try and keep a lid over the shocking nature of how it all went down. While that’s dark to be sure, Scheinert handles the humor of Billy Chew’s script by taking these two average Joes and emphasizing how naturally they manage to not think things through and f**k everything up even more.
Much like SWISS ARMY MAN, the sense of humor in DICK LONG won’t be for everyone, and despite the fact this premise seems poised for a madcap comedy in a small Southern town, the most laugh-out-moments are rooted in mundanity rather than wildness. It’s difficult to put into words, as the moments I found myself laughing the hardest were incredibly blunt instances of awkward behavior – like Zeke trying to pass out coffee to people, or Earl forgetting to put back a pen. So much works thanks to how Scheinert and Chew's work humanizes everyone involved, and how Abbott and Hyland bring such a lived-in authenticity to their roles, never playing for big laughs but rather being so natural as if it were all improvised. Hyland gets exceptional mileage out of Earl, the most dubious of the two, stuffing so many emotions down for the sake of keeping up a laid back personality, saying everything is “chill” or “tight”, but letting his anxiety slip through in subtle ways. Abbott’s Zeke is the one trying to take control, his nervousness both funny and empathetic, as he lets more of his anxious state come to the surface, as he risks losing his family should the truth get out. Whether you're feeling for them or laughing at them, it's all precisely because of how naturally human their efforts are.
Scheinert and his cast – which also features great work from Virginia Newcomb, Sarah Baker,Jess Weixler, Roy Wood Jr., Sunita Mani and Janelle Cochrane – do such a fantastic job of nailing the casual, sometimes odd nature of small-town life. Baxter and Cochrane are particular standouts, the former a doe-eyed rookie cop anxious to leave her mark and the latter a veteran, gruff sheriff who walks with a cane and keeps rum and pineapple juice in her desk. Together it all will draw comparisons to the Coen Brothers, namely a work like FARGO, but just take away the Minnesota cold and "You betcha's" and replace it with swampy Southern vibes and lots more Nickleback.
Even with such dark material at play, it can almost feel too languid going into the second act. In not revealing the truth until the top of the third act, the second spends most of the time trying to figure out what to do with the two men as they try to cover their tracks. There’s a mystery here, but it lives in it rather than has it unfold, giving the cops (Baker, Cochrane) not much to do. In doing so we're meant to watch as these two emotionally guarded, yet buffoonish men, try to keep a lid on everything. When that secret does come out, it's repulsive and shocking and may even turn some viewers away, But it's built up to with such genuine empathy, the shock undercut with directness, that it also can't help but be darkly hilarious, making you want to reach out and hug Zeke as much as you want to run from him.
Mixing all the ingredients that work wonders with an execution that doesn't always, THE DEATH OF DICK LONG has the potential to be, just like SWISS ARMY MAN, one of the most shocking, darkly hysterical, and misunderstood movies of the year. It's easy to be turned off by so much of how it proceeds, especially going into the third act, but there's a thoughtful theme of learning to understand people's struggles, no matter who they are or where they're from, all while analyzing an entrenched sense of masculinity. You may not have to like the person, but you can at least be empathetic towards their pain and fear. And yes, sometimes the more grotesque a secret it is, the more hilarious it can be.