***SPOILERS*** After some ten years after he first appeared on the screen back in 1996 in "Heaven's Prisoner" recovering alcoholic lawman Officer Dave Robicheaux, Tommy Lee Jones, gets on an unsolved murder case that he himself witnessed back in 1965 when he was just 17 years old.
In was back in the summer of 1965 that escaped black fugitive Dewitt Prejean, Chukwuma Onwuchekw, was gunned down in the Atchafalaya swamp by two perusing correction officers. Prejean's body was found some 43 years later when a motion picture company was making a Civil War film in and around the swamp. The person who found Prejean's remains was the star of the film actor Elrod Sykes, Peter Sarsgaard, who later had the misfortune of being stopped, while driving drunk, by Officer Robicheaux! In trying to talk Officer Robicheaux in not giving him a ticket Sykes, who was also driving with a suspended license, told him about what he found in the swamp and a light blob lit up in the lawman's head! Robicheaux witnessed Prejean's murder!
The film "The Electric Mist" has two stories interconnecting with each other in it. That includes the Pregean murder back in 1965 and a number of local hooker killings some 40 years later in the same general area; The Iberian Perish deep in the Louisiana Bayous. What connects these two crimes is that the person, or persons, responsible for them have something to do with the Civil War movie that's being made there in the almost impassable Atchafalaya Swamp!
The film leaves a lot of things up in the air in what's, and who's, behind the serial murders and even when it's over we never really know who the killer is. Officer Robicheaux's brutal and illegal methods in tracking down the elusive killer makes him anything but likable to the audience. The killer himself is always a step ahead of Robicheaux and even implicates the lawman as well as his FBI partner Agent Rosie Gomez,Justina Machado,in having them do his dirty work for him. We also have Officer Robicheaux get help in solving the hooker killings from an unexpected source! Civil War Confederate General John Bell Hood, Levon Holm. It was when Robicheaux got smashed by someone in a local bar slipping him a Mickey Finn, in his glass of Doctor Pepper, that he was able to conjure up the long dead general who gave him the clues to solve the murders.
The reformed and elderly, he's almost 60 years old in the movie, alcoholic lawman Robicheaux was a bit unbelievable in his being able to take on and beat silly people twice as big and half his age in the film. Even so Robicheaux's brutal tactics didn't bring in any results in having a number of key witness to the hooker murders end up dead because of them. As for the 43 year old mystery of who murdered Dewitt Prejean the film, including Robicheaux and those who murdered him, seemed to have almost completely forgot about it!
In was back in the summer of 1965 that escaped black fugitive Dewitt Prejean, Chukwuma Onwuchekw, was gunned down in the Atchafalaya swamp by two perusing correction officers. Prejean's body was found some 43 years later when a motion picture company was making a Civil War film in and around the swamp. The person who found Prejean's remains was the star of the film actor Elrod Sykes, Peter Sarsgaard, who later had the misfortune of being stopped, while driving drunk, by Officer Robicheaux! In trying to talk Officer Robicheaux in not giving him a ticket Sykes, who was also driving with a suspended license, told him about what he found in the swamp and a light blob lit up in the lawman's head! Robicheaux witnessed Prejean's murder!
The film "The Electric Mist" has two stories interconnecting with each other in it. That includes the Pregean murder back in 1965 and a number of local hooker killings some 40 years later in the same general area; The Iberian Perish deep in the Louisiana Bayous. What connects these two crimes is that the person, or persons, responsible for them have something to do with the Civil War movie that's being made there in the almost impassable Atchafalaya Swamp!
The film leaves a lot of things up in the air in what's, and who's, behind the serial murders and even when it's over we never really know who the killer is. Officer Robicheaux's brutal and illegal methods in tracking down the elusive killer makes him anything but likable to the audience. The killer himself is always a step ahead of Robicheaux and even implicates the lawman as well as his FBI partner Agent Rosie Gomez,Justina Machado,in having them do his dirty work for him. We also have Officer Robicheaux get help in solving the hooker killings from an unexpected source! Civil War Confederate General John Bell Hood, Levon Holm. It was when Robicheaux got smashed by someone in a local bar slipping him a Mickey Finn, in his glass of Doctor Pepper, that he was able to conjure up the long dead general who gave him the clues to solve the murders.
The reformed and elderly, he's almost 60 years old in the movie, alcoholic lawman Robicheaux was a bit unbelievable in his being able to take on and beat silly people twice as big and half his age in the film. Even so Robicheaux's brutal tactics didn't bring in any results in having a number of key witness to the hooker murders end up dead because of them. As for the 43 year old mystery of who murdered Dewitt Prejean the film, including Robicheaux and those who murdered him, seemed to have almost completely forgot about it!