Midnight In The Switchgrass (2021)

Midnight In The Switchgrass (2021) In Texas, a 26-year-old woman is found dead on the side of a road. The police officer in charge of the investigation is searching for a serial killer who targets young prostitutes. At the same time, two FBI agents are working together to dismantle a network of pimps. The three investigators join forces to arrest the killer.

Sistine Stallone, an actress like her younger sister Scarlet and her father Sylvester Stallone, who made her debut in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019), is here, but she doesn’t really have a big role. She only appears in one very short scene. But we don’t see much of Bruce Willis either, contrary to what one might think.

In fact, it’s really the duo of Megan Fox and Emile Hirsch who carry this film. And they do it very well!

This crime thriller about several people hunting down a serial killer isn’t the best, but it’s not one of the worst either.

The 1990s had the unbeatable Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Seven (1995), but The Bone Collector (1999) was frankly not bad. At the end of the 2000s, Angels & Demons (2009) was particularly enjoyable. In the early 2010s, we had The River Murders (2011), and a few years later, Hangman (2017) was pretty good.

Can we say that Midnight In The Switchgrass is one of the best films of its genre in the 2020s? It seems rather weak in comparison to the list I’ve just created. But we can still include it. After all, there have been quite a few attempts, but many have ended badly. Everything has to be almost perfect to make an excellent film.

There are quite a few scenes here that were suggested but not shown. One might almost wonder if some scenes were botched and then cut during editing, as if the director had said to himself, “Oh well, never mind! We don’t have time, let’s leave it like that! I hope the audience will understand…”

The plot is interesting, but not necessarily thrilling. There are some serious moments of suspense. The violence is not exaggerated; it’s normal for this kind of crime thriller. There are no unbearable torture scenes, which is fine by me.

I’m going to dwell a little on the cinematography of this trio of actors, which is well worth it.

Emile Hirsch is, of course, the excellent The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)! He is also in the very decent Hunting Grounds (2024). He is always excellent, even though he starred in the not-so-great but nevertheless interesting The Immaculate Room (2022) and the very bad Freaks (2018). He is not one of the five main actors on the poster for The Air I Breathe (2007), but the sixth! Another film to see, but not essential.

He appears in Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood (2019), but I haven’t seen The Son (2021) yet, nor Inside Man (2023), which also seems to be a detective film about tracking down a killer.

As for Megan Fox, she is brilliant in Ninja Turtles 1 & 2 (2014 & 2016) in the role of April. She is the charm asset of The Expendables 3 and Expendables 4 (2023). I’m not too big a fan of Transformers though.

Another film she carries on her shoulders is Till Death (2021), in which she really gave her all, including physically. Excellent performance!

I haven’t seen her in Subservience (2024) yet, but it looks like a role that suits her perfectly!

As for Bruce Willis, I don’t need to say anything about him. We will obviously never forget him in Die Hard, but also in Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), The Sixth Sense (1999) and even in his unconventional role in Death Becomes Her (1992)!

Midnight In The Switchgrass is a decent film which, unfortunately, has some missing elements and a certain lack of credibility in some inconsistent scenes… but overall, it has a good intro, an interesting plot and a touching ending, albeit too quick.

It’s clear that I expected more, but compared to a lot of other rubbish from this decade, it’s above average.