I’ve been watching the television show 24 for so long that I forgot how Kiefer Sutherland usually played the bad guy before he took on the role of Jack Bauer in the hit series. But today I rented the 1997 flick Truth or Consequences, N.M. and got a quick reminder of how psychotic Kiefer’s characters generally are.
This movie marked Sutherland’s directorial debut and also stars Vincent Gallo, Mykelti Williamson, Kevin Pollak, Kim Dickens, and Grace Phillips. Gallo plays Raymond, a two-bit drug dealer who just got out of prison after serving time for the big shot above him. He thinks the guy owes him a lot, so when all Raymond gets is a job in a warehouse moving boxes around, he comes up with a plan to steal a million dollars worth of heroin from the guy. In on the heist are Raymond’s friends Curtis (Sutherland) and Marcus (Williamson), and his girlfriend Addy (Dickens).
The deal goes terribly wrong right from the start. Raymond was counting on the warehouse to be empty during the robbery, but the drug dealer and another man are in there. Curtis freaks out and shoots both of them, only to discover that the other guy was an undercover cop who also happened to be wearing a wire.
Things just get worse from there as the gang must go on the run. They pick up a couple hostages along the way, the cops pick up their trail, and the movie ends pretty much as you’d expect it to. In other words, no surprises here.
I thought this was just an ok movie. It was clearly trying to be “smart” in the Tarantino sense, but it fell well short of that. Nevertheless, it still had its entertaining moments and is worth a look if you have a chance.