-Written by Michelle Vorob.
White Trash is a gritty drama about a long-standing feud between two dysfunctional families that comes to a head after the accidental [vehicular] killing of a toddler.
Set in the dead of winter in a slum, we see people living so poorly their dilapidated homes don't have functioning heat or water. Their residences look like squalid, condemned wrecks. Drug and alcohol addiction is commonplace, although in this situation, the alcohol is probably the only thing staving off limb amputations from the cold.
White Trash starts off strong, with a young man driving down a deserted residential street at night, while a toddler also wanders out of the house, alone. The scene cuts back and forth a few times, until the driver hits something and keeps going. You are led to infer from the back-and-forth the wandering toddler is what was hit.
Cut to two months later, the bereaved, drug addicted mother, Anna (Anne-Carolyne Binette), her boyfriend, Mike (Michael Swatton), and his Uncle Ken (Doug Phillips) arrive home to find an intruder in their house. Mike shoots the young man in haste, seriously injuring him. Uncle Ken walks in, sees what's happened and kills the intruder with another shot, to put him out of his misery. The problem is, this wasn't a random intruder. This was Stevie (Tyler Pope), the same young man who struck and killed Anna's toddler and is a member of the Corrigan family, with whom they have some type of long-standing feud.
Why no one calls the police at this point, I don't know. Mike and Ken shot this guy in self defense. He did break into their home. The police are not part of the family feud and not antagonists in this film. White Trash starts to drag a bit at this point and I was about 30 minutes into the roughly 90 minute film.
Mike and Ken try to dispose of the body, but can't bury it, as the ground is frozen solid. Long story short, Mike chops him up [off screen] and they put each body part in other people's trash bags, as tomorrow is trash day.
While out doing this, more Corrigan family siblings go to Mike and Ken's house, see blood all over the kitchen and somehow know it's Stevie's blood. Once outside again, they see Stevie's bike, which further enrages them and sets them on the warpath to hunt down poor Anna, who they blame for Stevie's death. It felt slightly ridiculous at this point. Why are they blaming Anna? Because.
White Trash is filmed well. The style is cold, barren, and gritty, except for one scene that happens at a police officer's home, effectively contrasting how the other families live. White Trash does have some great moments, but it was only 90 minutes and felt too long. The feud didn't totally feel like a real, established beef to me and the characters’ temperaments and personas seemed a bit inconsistent. The ending; I'm a bit “meh” about the ending. A “fight to the death” that felt a bit flat, another “fight to the death” that just annoyed me. Maybe it's me. There was technically an escape at the end. One that had meaning in it that actually was the best thing for both people involved and worth seeing.
Directed by Adrian Langley.
Written by Doug Phillips.
Starring Michael Swatton, Anne-Carolyne Binette, Doug Phillips, Sophie McIntosh, Blake Canning, Meryn Jackson, Patrick Garden, Tyler Pope, etc.
7/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE
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