While there is always room for a good black comedy, Arizona takes a feeble premise and runs it into the ground as it adds victim after victim to a growing roster of corpses. Set in a nearly deserted subdivision following the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008, the story’s crazed protagonist is Sonny (Danny McBride), who—furious over losing his house and family—accidentally kills the realtor (an uncredited Seth Rogen) who scammed him and takes the dead man’s assistant Cassie (Rosemarie DeWitt) as a hostage (eventually also capturing her teenage daughter). What follows is a series of unfunny interruptions by various characters who invariably wind up in Sonny’s crosshairs: his screeching ex-wife (Kaitlin Olson), a gun-happy cop (David Alan Grier), Cassie’s ex-husband (Luke Wilson), and the latter’s goofy new girlfriend (Elizabeth Gillies). The multiple murders lead up to nothing much more than an extended chase scene in filmmaker Jonathan Watson’s debut feature, which might have worked better if McBride had brought some tonal variation to Sonny, but his over-the-top turn simply becomes insufferable by the frantic final reel, as does the movie itself. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)
Arizona
RLJE Films, 83 min., not rated, DVD or Blu-ray: $29.99, Oct. 16
Arizona
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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