In the Electric Mist Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Mary Steenburgen Director: Bertrand Tavernier
It took an age for veteran French director Bertrand Tavernier to succumb to the wiles of Hollywood. Big budget, big cast, famous novel on which to base your film - it must have sounded ideal.
For a man who has won countless awards in his homeland - and achieved international acclaim with the likes of his magical jazz opus Round Midnight (1986) - we can suppose that perhaps he was just wanting to tick all the boxes as his career enters its twilight.
Whatever the case, In the Electric Mist on paper has all the elements needed to be a success, but it's sadly lacking the one thing that is up to the director to provide - and that's tension.
Talk about sounding the death knell for a thriller.
Taken from the pages of author James Lee Burke's best-selling In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead - and set in the steamy swamplands of the American deep south - Tavernier's film boasts Tommy Lee Jones (below) doing what he does best. As the hard-bitten cop on the trail of a brutal murderer, he is all spit and fury, broken down by what he has seen and what he expects to find in the course of his investigation.