A slow-burn Rocky Mountain noir set along the corridor between Billings, Mont., and the Canadian border — a cold, lonely stretch of highway shared by salesmen and smugglers alike — “Blood for Dust” establishes a ruthless sense of sangfroid from its opening shot. On a desk in a bland business office sits a family portrait, depicting a proud Marine and his family. Without warning, a shotgun goes off, splattering the photo and the wall behind it in blood and brain matter. The camera pulls back to reveal the same man, his face half-missing, a briefcase full of cash propped open on his desk.
It’s a jarring — and jarringly artificial — scene. Fortunately, it’s the only one that rings false in director Rod Blackhurst’s otherwise tense, no-nonsense thriller, a standout of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival that merits comparison to “Breaking Bad” or “Hell or High Water,” but with snow instead of sand. Moments after that opening gun blast, “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harrington (sporting a sleazy handlebar mustache) and Scoot McNairy (as his hangdog accomplice) show up, too late to save the friend who offed himself. In taking his own life, the dead man saved theirs. The question that lingers is how long their luck may last.
Tipping its hat to “Fargo” immediately after this scene, the film serves up a sly nod to the Coen brothers’ sub-zero crime classic: a high-angle shot of a snowy parking lot, framed just as Roger Deakins might have done it. Set in the early ’90s, when the world was still analog, “Blood for Dust” trades on the same desperate-salesman energy, the way professional violence poisons the domestic sphere. But there are no cops sniffing around here, just men willing and ready to bend the law to their own advantage.
McNairy and Harrington are Cliff and Ricky, two low-level hustlers who split ways after the gory setback. Cliff tries to go straight, peddling defibrillators from the back of his Oldsmobile — a sign his career is on life support — whereas Ricky is a man without morals, running drugs and guns for the worst kind of clients. By the time the pair’s paths cross again a year and a half later, it’s clear that Blackhurst (reuniting with “Here Alone” screenwriter David Ebeltoft) doesn’t put much stock in the American dream, at least not in the ways a hardworking, churchgoing soul is supposed to provide for his family — what once was called “an honest living.”
Reading between the lines, it’s clear that Cliff and his unquestioningly supportive wife, Amy (Nora Zehetner), have experienced some kind of tragedy. What remains of the now-childless couple’s relationship is sustained by half-truths and hollow promises, spoken into pay phones along the road. All throughout — and up to the Bible verse that serves as an ominous sort of coda — it feels as if karma is catching up to Cliff, that past schemes could bring lethal consequences. To wit, Cliff loses his job after a suspicious customer recognizes him from an earlier con.
Instead of telling Amy, he pivots to another plan, trying to coax a favor from an old friend (Stephen Dorff), to no avail. Running out of options, Cliff has no choice but to reteam with Ricky on a reckless plan to double-cross a drug dealer who, as played by Josh Lucas (pitch-perfect in a small part), leaves little doubt that he’ll come after Cliff and everyone he loves should their ambitions get the better of them. Ricky is the wild card here, and Cliff figures out pretty quickly — after watching his pal put a bullet in the heads of a couple accomplices — that Ricky will plug him too as soon as he’s overstayed his utility.
Bolstered by a strong, poker-faced ensemble with the good sense to underplay whatever menace each brings to the table, “Blood for Dust” does a fine job of making a familiar gambit feel unpredictable. There’s no way Cliff’s new gig will go smoothly, and yet, Blackhurst keeps us guessing as the tension mounts — as in a scene when Slim (Ethan Suplee), the heavy sent to accompany Cliff on his maiden run, makes clear that he’s prepared to take out the driver who’s been tailing them since lunch: “Just be friendly, and don’t lean forward,” Slim instructs Cliff, cocking his pistol. In Blackhurst’s world, it’s better to shoot before the other guy gets a chance.
The helmer, better known for his nonfiction true-crime projects (namely, “Amanda Knox” and “John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise”), treats action sequences with a startling sense of calm. When things eventually do erupt — as they inevitably do in not one, but two spectacular gun battles — Blackhurst and DP Justin Derry stage those scenes like hardboiled pros. The violence doesn’t seem to tweak their heart rates in the slightest, which makes the bloodshed all the more brutal. The movie looks terrific: shades of copper, set off by stark widescreen snowscapes and deep, dark shadows. There’s a consistency to it all that our weary-looking antihero would approve of. As Cliff himself sees it, the key to being a good salesman is keeping one’s story straight.
