Genre: Drama/Thriller
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Rachel Hallett Hardcastle
Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Jack Quaid, Owen Teague, Kurt Russell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Thomas Haden Church, Michael Pitt, Colin Ford, Chris Cooper, Millicent Simmonds, Michael Kelly, Adam Brody
Plot: Charles “Slim” Henry (Timothee Chalamet) wakes up disheveled, under a tree on a summer night. Sheriff’s deputies, led by Mully Johan (Jack Quaid), try to get the disoriented Slim to talk. When he doesn’t, Johan cuffs Slim.
FOUR YEARS LATER.
1986.
LOWLANDS. SOUTHERN INDIANA.
Slim gets released from prison. He walks to a roadside diner, where the owner automatically knows the story. Anyone passing through this town on foot could only come from one place. He makes the 23-mile walk into Easton and arrives at his brother’s home. Ellis (Owen Teague), Slim’s younger brother, lies in bed next to an obese girl when Slim shows up. Ellis welcomes his brother home by yelling for him to shut the bedroom door.
A month later, Slim is working on a farm. He asks the owner for more hours. He goes home to Ellis’s, offers to go out with him for a burger. Ellis tells him he already ate, so Slim goes alone. He eats in silence at a tavern frequented by local day-laborers. Days later, Slim goes to Jilly’s, a restaurant run by Jonathan O'Sullivan (Kurt Russell), the local bookie, and asks where Ellis and “who did it.” Ellis got his ass kicked over a woman, and he lies in a bloodied heap outback. After taking a look at him, Jonathan warns Slim that Ellis changed when Slim “left,” and also that he’s into Jonathan for a lot of money. Slim offers to pay half in a few days, which Jonathan grudgingly accepts.
Gabby O'Sullivan (Jessica Brown Findlay) comes outback. She and Slim share a meaningful glance, and then Gabby berates Jonathan about keeping her late. When he still won’t leave, she wordlessly climbs into Slim’s truck. As Slim shoves Ellis into his pick-up, Buddy Dunn arrives (Thomas Haden Church). A mystery man stays inside Buddy’s shadowy car. Slim drives away as Buddy walk into Jilly’s. Inside the car, the mystery man’s hands move skillfully as he slices into a pepperoni log with a box-cutter, giving a slice to his dog. Inside Jilly’s, Buddy menaces Jonathan, insinuating he’s skimming off the top to pay for medical bills owed by his late wife. Buddy leaves the restaurant, and a moment later, the mystery man enters. He is Samuel Montana (Michael Pitt). Jonathan hides a knife up his sleeve, but Sam’s too quick for him—he stabs Jonathan with the box-cutter.
Slim and Gabby share a long, awkward silence, broken by Ellis’s unconscious farting. Slim apologizes for not dropping by sooner. She says nothing, going inside her house, where Slim sees her greet a five-year-old son, Benardard. Slim drives Ellis home and flops him on the couch. Meanwhile, Buddy and Sam drag Jonathan out into the middle of a cornfield. Buddy is a little unsettled by how many “accounts” they’ve had to “close” lately. He examines Jonathan’s business log and sees Ellis Henry’s name on the top of the list.
Early the next morning, Johane, who’s now sheriff, is awakened by a phone call. He’s disheveled, an angry, functioning alcoholic with a chronic cough. He takes care of his elderly mother before leaving. At Ellis’s house, Slim carefully chastises Ellis over his drinking and gambling. Ellis tells Slim that there are two kinds of people globally: those taken and those they take from. Ellis accepts his fate. He tells Slim he has a party to go to that night to not expect him, then storms out of the house and drives away.
Johane comes upon Billy O'Sullivan (Colin Ford), who lies naked and unconscious in some shrubs outside a woman’s house. Johane awakens him, and Brady insists this was a prank. The woman who owns the house is not pleased. Johane drags Brady away, and Brady asks Johane if he plans to tell Gabby, his sister, about this. Gabby watches Benard play catch with himself as Johane arrives with a now-dressed Brady. Brady goes into the house without a word. Johane talks to Gabby, who woke him up in the first place because of Jonathan’s missing. Johane wonders which saw him last. She says Slim, which immediately rubs Johane the wrong way. Johane says he’ll check around for Jonathan, then confesses he went out on a date with another woman. Gabby doesn’t care; she wishes he’d stop telling her. Johane leaves.
After work, Slim finds Brady waiting in his pick-up. Brady punches him in the jaw for “what [Slim] did ta [his] sister.” He promises whatever comes next will be for what Slim has done to Jonathan. Slim shrugs and tells him to check with Gabby—he didn’t do anything. Brady claims he remembers “what happened down in Pittsfield.” Slim doesn’t want to hear this, so he throws Brady out of the truck and drives off. Late at night, Ellis staggers out of the party and to his car. Sam Montana, .45 in one hand and box-cutter in the other, waits. Sam slices open one of Ellis’s hands and urge him to drive into the backroads.
Inside the Henry house, Johane waits for Slim, and they have an awkward, angry conversation about Jonathan. Johane suggests a motive of the money Ellis owed Jonathan. Johane asks where Ellis is; Slim doesn’t know. He tells Johane to check with Gabby because they left together. Johane leaves. In the middle of the field, Buddy watches as Sam pounds the crap out of Ellis. In the end, Sam kills him.
Meanwhile, Slim waits up for Ellis, who never shows up. The next morning, a passing police cruiser sees Ellis’s car sitting in the middle of the field. As Johane and the deputies speculate on what may have happened, rain begins to pour.
After Ellis’s funeral, Slim goes to the basement to seek out his old 12-gauge shotgun. He gets into the pick-up and finds Brady at a burger joint. Slim demands to know if Brady knows Jonathan’s business. Brady says he doesn’t know much, but he gives Slim the name of a collector, who once worked for his dad, who will most likely no more. Slim heads in the direction of the collector, dragging Brady along for the ride. Outside a diner, Slim and Brady confront the ex-collector. After some fisticuffs and gun-based threats, he coughs up a name and a town in Ohio.
On their way back into Easton, Slim and Brady visit Joey Finne (Chris Cooper), who runs a shop for antique gun repair. Slim catches Joey upon the situation as he attempts to stock up on weapons. Joey volunteers to go with them since he’s dying of asbestos poisoning and doesn’t have long to live. Slim wonders about Lenny (Millicent Simmonds), Joey’s 18-year-old deaf daughter, but Joey shrugs her off, claiming she takes care of herself better than Joey could. They make plans to leave the following morning.
That night, at Ellis’s house, Gabby confronts Slim. Brady told her everything, and she is not happy he’s going on what’s effectively a suicide run (it’ll either leave him dead or in jail). She slaps him and tells him that, while Slim may have ruined what they had, she won’t let him ruin Brady, too. Then she leaves. The following morning, a farmer finds Jonathan’s body in his field. As he goes to pick up Joey, Slim notices a sheriff’s cruiser parked nearby. He picks up Joey. As they head out of town, they find a cruiser parked across the road, blocking the path. Slim gets out, and Johane confronts him about the situation. It immediately turns into a conversation about Gabby, not the potential crimes, which leads Slim to attack Johane. Joey gets out to try to calm Slim down. They get back in the truck and move past Johane’s cruiser.
Joey regales Slim with old-man stories until Slim parks at a rest stop. Brady’s waiting for them pissed that they left without him. Even more pissed that they found Jonathan’s body. Together, the three of them drive into Bowenville, Ohio, and head to the local diner to ask around about Terry Adams. They get resistance from one man until Slim shoves his head into a used, unflushed toilet. The man tells them Terry runs a drive-in theatre at the edge of town. The three men head to the drive-in, where they’re ready to assault Terry Adams in the projection booth. He’s a little more even-tempered, asking them to wait until the movie’s over, and then they’ll talk. After the movie, Terry tells him he used to collect for a Philadelphian gangster named Manny Montana (Michael Kelly) and that the men they’d be looking for are his muscle, Buddy and Sam. Terry warns them about Sam by telling them about an experience he had with Sam once. He ended up killing an entire family, husband, wife, teenage children, grandparents. Terry gives them the name and location of Richie’s Pennsylvania bar, Cooz’s. He says Buddy and Sam live upstairs at the bar.
Later, Slim and Joey sit in the back of the pick-up, watching Brady flirt with one of the drive-in employees. Joey asks about Gabby and about whether or not Slim is up for what’s coming next. Slim tells Joey he feels like he failed Ellis, so he has to do this to make up for that. The next day, the three head up to Coatesville, PA. That night, at Cooz’s, Riley Watson (Adam Brody) tends bar and gripes about the leaky roof. Upstairs, Manny Montana mentions to Sam (his brother) his intentions to retire. Outside in the rain, Slim, Brady, and Joey load their weapons and discuss the plan to bust inside. Slim excuses himself to urinate and Brady asks Joey what it’s like to kill somebody if the guilt haunts him. Joey tells him the haunting thing is knowing you’re capable of murder.
Slim and Brady enter the bar from the front. Joey goes up the rear fire stairs. Two separate shootouts ensue: upstairs, Sam gets the drop on Joey, shooting him twice; downstairs, Slim and Brady kill Riley, Doc, and Richie. Buddy, meanwhile, is in a bedroom receiving oral sex from a crackhead transvestite. Slim tells Brady to go into the bathroom and hideout. On the stairs, Sam spots Buddy and kills him. Downstairs, Riley Watson is still alive. He tries to shoot Slim, but Slim gets him first. High as a kite, Francis heads downstairs, turns on the jukebox, and begins to dance. Creeping back upstairs, Slim enters Sam’s room. He finds Joey on the floor, dying. Joey indicates the upstairs bathroom. Slim bursts into the bathroom, where the tub water overflows, but the faucet still runs, and a struggle ensues.
After Slim gets the upper hand, Sam dives out the window just as Joey aims to shoot him. Slim calls for Brady to get upstairs. He tells Brady to stay with Joey, then heads downstairs after Sam. Slim doesn’t spot Sam until it’s almost too late, but before either man can do anything, the ceiling collapses from the bathtub water. Sam divebombs Slim, knocking his gun away, and tries to cut him with the box-cutter. Brady, who fell through the ceiling, manages to shoot Sam before severely damaging Slim. Police sirens rise in the distance. They grab Joey’s body and get the hell out.
Back in Easton, Slim and Brady try to go back to business as usual. They go to the Easton Folk Festival. Brady gripes about trouble sleeping. Lenny approaches Slim for a dance, which Gabby sees unhappily. After the dance, Lenny sits near Brady and Benard. Brady flirts with her, not realizing she’s deaf. Slim picks Gabby out of the crowd and goes to her. Now it’s Johane’s turn to be unhappy. He watches them dance. Slim watches mournfully as Gabby leaves him. He goes home, gets loaded, and stumbles into the bedroom, where Gabby waits. They make love. Afterward, she tells Slim she knows he killed the people who killed her father, but she doesn’t care. She tells Slim that Benard isn’t hers—he’s Johane’s. She laments that Johane loves her, but she can’t love him because she loves Slim, who doesn’t love her. Slim doesn’t say a word.
The next morning, Johane’s waiting for Slim. As before, a conversation that begins with Johane menacing Slim about the incident at Cooz’s turns into a brawl over Gabby, whom Johane loves. This time, the fight is interrupted by Gabby, who consoles Slim instead of Johane. This makes Johane even angrier, and he mentions that if anyone comes after him because of what happened at Cooz’s, Johane won’t stop them.
At a hospital, Sam Montana has survived. He tells doctors and detectives he doesn’t remember anything, but the fiery glint in his eyes suggests otherwise. When he’s discharged, Sam immediately gets a gun, rounds up the Hardings, and they head out for Easton. At the O'Sullivans’ house, Brady asks Slim what he remembers “that night…down in Pittsfield”—the incident that landed him in jail. Slim remembers nothing, just drinking and waking up, covered in blood, under a shagbark hickory tree. Johane arrives to tell Gabby that he’s going to Pennsylvania to question Sam Montana. When Slim and Brady find out he’s still alive, they’re petrified. Slim charges Brady the task of protecting Gabby and Benard while he’s gone. Sam and the others kill Terry Adams in Ohio, then move on to Easton. Along the way, Sam gets so irritated by one of the Hardings, and he starts cutting on him with his box-cutter.
In Easton, Sam gets the O'Sullivans’ address by intimidating a pharmacist. At the farm, Brady starts packing suitcases and preparing to leave. Slim, meanwhile, has gone to Lenny’s and packed a suitcase for her. They head out. Before Brady can even get to Gabby, Sam and the others are there. Sam shoots Brady, demands to know where “the other one” is. He follows Brady’s gaze outside to Gabby. Slim returns to the O'Sullivans’ with Lenny and finds the wounded Brady. He tries to get information, but Brady can’t speak. While Lenny discovers Benard apparently unharmed, just terrified in his dark bedroom, Slim finds Gabby upstairs in a bloody-water-filled bathtub.
That night, Johane arrives at the farmhouse and sees the blood on Slim’s shirt. He’s terrified for Benard, but when Slim says he’s safe, it dawns on Johane, who blames Slim for her death. They have yet another fight, interrupted by the return of Sam. Slim and Johane come after the three men, guns blazing. They manage to hit one on the first go-around. Someone gets the drop on Slim, shooting him twice. Slim drops. Johane kills one. As Johane tries to move Slim into a safer part of the house, Slim begins to see something resembling heaven, a golden wheatfield where Ellis, Joey, and Gabby wait. Johane pulls Slim back to reality as Sam enters the house. Slim gets to his feet, barely, as Sam comes upon Johane. He kills the sheriff. As Sam reloads, Slim shoots Sam, this time killing him. Slim’s adrenaline drops, and he collapses again. Magwynn is the only one left, relatively unharmed. Slim tries to walk away from the scene, but he collapses. Fade to black.
“Years later,” Benard is now seven, walking through a wheatfield. Slim, looking serene, emerges from the wheatfield, as well. They walk toward the O'Sullivans’ farmhouse, which has now been painted and refurbished. Brady sits with Lenny on the porch swing outside.
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