One of the gravest disappointments of last year’s underwhelming batch of film. Perhaps my dismay is a by-product of the close proximity this watch had to my reading of Donald Ray Pollock’s novel—I found it almost impossible not to constantly compare notes twixt the two, and Campos’ adaptation is found seriously wanting.
Pollock’s novel is an astonishing work, striking in its unrelenting ugliness. He depicts his hometown Knockemstiff and its surrounds as a decaying hell on earth, populated by an…