A movie about a nobly principled con artist and courier of contraband invites skepticism if not outright ridicule, but that’s just what writer-director Zak Forsman’s Down and Dangerous is — an indie genre production, poised somewhere between self-seriousness and loose-limbed character study, that gets its ya-yas out and wins over viewers by virtue of its continued ability to surprise.
Los Angeleno Paul Boxer (John T. Woods) is said honorable smuggler, and he’s so good at his scams that he doesn’t need to carry a gun. When he loses leverage in a situation, however, Paul is forced by more violent, less genteel traffickers into concocting a scheme to bring a couple kilos of blow across the Mexican border. Naturally, there’s also a gal (Paulie Rojas) with whom Paul has a complicated past.
Down and Dangerous gets your attention early on, when Paul runs an end-around on a cruise giveaway on a tampon box contest in order to lure a woman into unwittingly serving as his mule. It tests that interest at times, but never lets it go. It may sound weird, but there are echoes of Michael Mann’s Thief here; Forsman’s tale apparently takes its inspiration from his father’s career in the independent cocaine-smuggling trade, but he’s interested in honor and uprightness in an interesting guise. When we meet him, Paul isn’t atoning for past sins or looking for “one big last score,” he’s happily working outside the law but with his own moral compass.
If the talk of integrity is at times a bit marble-mouthed or awkward, it’s certainly not notional — it’s interwoven throughout. This may make Down and Dangerous seem and feel a bit ridiculous at times, but it definitely also livens things up, and makes it different from so many like-minded movies. The film is also abetted by a polished technical package that belies its Kickstarter-assisted low-budget funding.
As for the performances, Woods has a withholding demeanor that doesn’t tip or bleed over into too-cool-for-school affectedness; he charms enough to get by, and likewise intimidates, but also operates with the knowledge that sometimes less is more. The attractive Rojas, meanwhile, has a chirpy cadence that summons aural memories of Penelope Cruz.
Forsman’s movie has a pinch of batshit-craziness (the idea of a freelance smuggling mentor, played by Judd Nelson, is risible) and I’m still not entirely convinced that its narrative unfolds in a way that makes complete sense, regardless of the material’s nonfiction roots. (There’s truth and “based on true events,” after all, and sometimes movies lean too heavily on the former, in efforts to bolster credibility that actually end up undermining dramatic engagement.) Still, there’s a weirdly dirty charm to this curio, which has more going for it than not. In addition to its theatrical engagements, Down and Dangerous is also available across VOD and digital platforms. For more information, click here to visit the movie’s website. (Artis Entertainment/The Sabi Company, unrated, 95 minutes)