Arizona is a 2018 comedy/thriller set in the midst of the 2009 housing crisis, where a single mom and struggling realtor sees her life goes off the rails when she witnesses a murder.
It’s not that the movies haven’t tried to milk what they can from the crumbling economic crisis a decade ago, from tense dramas to investigative thrillers, so I guess it was inevitable we’d get a black comedy out of the deal as well. All in all, it’s probably the most potent prospect of the bunch, and Jonathan Watson‘s newest film Arizona feels like it has just about everything such a movie needs to make it sing, though ultimately runs out of gas before striking with any lasting significance.
In a small once prosperous town in Arizona, real estate agent Cassie (Rosemary DeWitt) is struggling in the midst of the subprime mortgage crisis, trying to raise her teen daughter Morgan (Lolli Sorenson). Houses are not selling and as she works to deal with her ex-husband Scott (Luke Wilson), must also cope with her manager (Seth Rogen), a mess of a man with all sorts of personal problems who doesn’t treat her with any respect. Enter Sonny (Danny McBride), an unhappy homeowner who walks into the office one day and in a tussle, kills her boss, leaving her a witness. Taking her hostage, he brings her to his house with plans to peacefully wriggle is way out of his crime, though it becomes clear that Sonny isn’t all that stable, soon nabbing Morgan before things just get entirely out of control.
Starting out smart, with some nice nods and jabs to the issue, Arizona works for a bit as Cassie feels as much a victim in all this as those stuck in homes they can’t sell or afford. Cassie is a terrific character loaded with potential to give the story some authenticity, even as it works to be comedic. Her homelife is in disarray and she works for a monster of a sexist pig who is himself rife with possibilities for the story to take some pokes at. Truthfully, the whole thing could have worked just with these points alone. The film shifts a bit though when Sonny arrives and the two find some common ground in their disastication over a number of shared problems.
Eventually, this becomes a quasi-reverse home-invasion horror film set in a mostly abandoned gated community, allowing the limited characters plenty of landscape to run amok. Naturally, the film gets its hands bloody as the bodies being to pile up, with McBride making the most of his now trademark whacky loose cannon type with a few cards missing from the deck. He’s undoubtedly fun to watch, even if he works best in the peripheral than as a lead.
Still, despite some good work from the cast, including a brief bit with David Alan Grier as a local cop, the movie never goes as dark as it should, missing both the chance to be bitterly funny or wickedly violent. McBride fans will surely have something to keep them satisfied, though it’s really DeWitt who is the best reason to tune in. Sometimes funny, Arizona comes with a reserved recommendation.