Indy Film Fest: Dead Draw

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A tense crime drama that’s less about the score than the unconquerable enmity between thieves, “Dead Draw” shows us that trust is always the first casualty when a heist goes bad.

Written and directed by Brian Klemesrud, the film has some decent action sequences and not a little grisly mayhem. But it’s the strong performances, along with the whipsaw of suspicion and deadly resolve, that give the movie momentum.

The setup: Four expert thieves break into a bank in Frisco City, Indiana, a (fictional) small town in the middle of nowhere. Getting into the vault is easy; thanks to a tipoff, they know which safe deposit boxes contain the cash. The hard part is stealing from the amorphous criminal cartel that stashes $25 million in such a place. It’s the sort of big score you try to make your last.

Gil Bellows is Harrison, leader of the crew. He’s an old-school sort; only one man (him) holds a phone until the job is done. Even splits. Only work with people you’ve done jobs with before. Everybody keeps their cool because when emotions boil over is when things go bad.

Harrison goes back a ways with each of the others, with both shared loyalty and reasons to resent each other.

Mack (Michael Eklund), the safecracking whiz, has just come off a five-year prison stretch when Harrison stranded him at their last job together. He’s an intense, moody guy who found God behind bars. Mack seems sincere in his desire to reform, but it’s not long before he’s agreed to take another heist. For a time, Mack and Harrison pretend they don’t carry a grudge between them for the sake of the job.

Dallas (Andy Ahrens) is Mack’s kid brother, a promising boxer who broke his hand and needs an operation to fix it. Mack would rather not have the volatile Dallas involved in the job, but Harrison figures he’s his own man. Dallas has his own trouble with drink, keeping his anger in check and a girlfriend (Brit Shaw) he thinks is cheating on him.

Rounding things out is Jones (Faust Checho), an ex-military guy who recently finished rehab for pills and booze. He’s the coolest cucumber of the bunch, but capable of fits of violence when he figures someone done him wrong. Jones has debts piled up and needs this score to keep the loan shark’s goon (Slaine) off his back.

The foursome assembles in an airplane hangar after the job to take off and meet with Sarah (Elizabeth Tulloch), the insider who set it all up. She and Harrison have done 18 jobs together, all without a hitch — well… except for Mack getting pinched — and have developed a thing for each other. That’ll complicate matters down the line.

But when the group arrives, they find the pilot has been killed in an especially cruel fashion, and they are pinned down by the cartel, or someone else.

The clock starts ticking, the accusations start flying about who’s the rat, and soon enough the loyalty of thieves is tested.

Klemesrud uses a lot of flashbacks to flesh out the backstories of the characters, which is effective but perhaps overused too much. At times it distracts from the front burner of how they’re going to get out of this jam, especially when some of the scenes appear to be just underlining what we already know about the men.

It’s a great cast, with Eklund a particular standout as the guy who doesn’t quite fit into the group. I should also mention Bill Elverman as a notable tough guy who shows up rather late in the game but still makes an impression.

Bellows is a journeyman actor who’s been all around on film and TV, but most people probably remember him as the cocky young convict in “The Shawshank Redemption.” Here he’s grayer and grimmer, a hard man who accepts the consequences of the life he chose.

The obvious comparison to “Reservoir Dogs” aside, “Dead Draw” shows a steady hand in showing that crime does pay, but it also takes its own sort of deduction.