BONE DRY awash in DTV goodness.

By Eric Matthew Harvey

If you’re anything like me, a DVD with Lance Henriksen on the cover will stop you dead in your tracks. And lately, I’ve been doing a lot of dead stopping at my local video store.

Henriksen is in the recently released PISTOL WHIPPED with Steven Seagal, PUMPKINHEAD: BLOOD FEUD and SASQUATCH MOUNTAIN, all easily obtainable on most Blockbuster new release walls. Needless to say, Ol’ Lance ain’t hurting for work in 2008, what with seven more roles either filming or in post-production.

The one out there now that really piqued my interest was BONE DRY, a MOST DANGEROUS GAME riff that involves only Henriksen and Lukas Goss (BLADE II) for most of its 100 minute running time.

Goss plays Eddie, a dude dressed like a businessman driving through the desert on his way home to his wife and kids. An ill-timed piss turns into a crack on the head by Jimmy (Henriksen), who begins a brutal game of cat and mouse in the desert with our hapless protagonist. Never out of binocular range, Jimmy orders Eddie to head north or face instant death with a high-powered rifle shot.

Over the course of the movie, Eddie is subjected to various desert tortures such as a strategically placed bottle of salt-water and waking up naked chained to a cactus. The reason is unclear, but more than likely I thought, it had to be about a woman.

As we’ll soon see, it is. And if I weren’t so thoroughly engrossed in the proceedings, I’d probably have seen the twist a mile away. This minimalist revenge thriller has style and savagery to spare, a film so sure of itself, that it transcends its B-movie roots and makes you wonder why it went direct-to-video instead of getting a theatrical release. If they can make a shitload of prints for shit like MAMA’S BOY, then there’s some money somewhere for a tight little independent wonder like BONE DRY.

In his directorial debut, Brett A. Hart has an eye for the macabre and a flair for the desolate, bringing the two together for what could possibly be one of the best American thrillers made in a decade or more. In light of the pedestrian script (which Hart co-wrote with INSECTICIDAL scribe Jeff O’Brien), it’s no secret that the aforementioned style is Hart’s strong suit. Given a more kinetic story and bigger budget, Hart could have possibly been in over his head and made a film that looks like everything else out there.

However, with BONE DRY, he’s a director that obviously knows his story’s limitations, and by knowing what they are, elevates his and the actor’s work to a level far beyond the usual direct-to-video potboilers cluttering up the shelves at local video stores and more importantly, the actual theatrical releases stinking up America’s movie theaters.

Now if he’d just lose that “A Brett A. Hart Vision” credit, he’ll be somebody to watch.

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