ida red movie review

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the den mother, indeed, the biological mother, of a criminal family sits rotting in jail, a widow as a result of the bust that nabbed her. Her two sons are loyal boys and good earners. One is the more ethical of the pair, in that old “to live outside the law you must be honest” kind of way. The other son is a snakelike psycho sadist more or less mass murderer who, when his brother is in a less than voluble mood, charms him by asking if he’s having his period. Now mom’s got the cancer (or something equivalent) and wants to breathe free air before purchasing the final farm. And she’d like to be sure her family’s criminal equivalent of a 401K is nice and plump too. So she engineers both a parole and a heist.

Right. As the rock critic Robert Christgau once wondered about a mid-'70s Rod Stewart album, “How’d all those clichés get in there I wonder.” Written and directed by regional filmmaker John Swab (who also has a supporting role), this Tulsa-peripheral crime drama stars Melissa Leo , Josh Hartnett , and Frank Grillo in the roles of Ida (her nickname “Ida Red” derives from a song by cowboy swing legend Bob Wills), Good Brother Wyatt, and Psycho Brother Dallas, respectively. Rounding out the clan is sister Jeanie ( Deborah Ann Woll ), on the outs with mom, maybe because she’s married to a kind but soft cop named Bodie (George Carroll). Their daughter, rebellious teen Darla ( Sofia Hublitz ), is of course drawn to her charming uncle Wyatt.

Wyatt’s having a hard time holding things together after a truck heist goes wrong. A less-than-avuncular FBI man played by William Forsythe is asking discomfiting questions even before Dallas appoints himself a cleaner for the job, a task he takes on with undue relish. Dallas strolls into a hospital ICU to smother a survivor of the shooting. (And what is it with these movies, by the way, where pretty much anybody, including someone who looks like Frank Grillo on his way to commit a homicide, can stroll through hospital corridors unmolested the better to smother a guy in the ICU? I know health services are overtaxed nowadays but seriously—how often does this really happen, if ever?) Dallas goes in search of the wingman who helped screw things up and shoots some of his kin. Dallas is nasty.

Meanwhile, cop Bodie is not too bright, leaving a file he’s compiled on his in-laws right on the car seat next to daughter Darla so she can discover it while Dad’s running an errand while taking her round the way. Character notes for Darla, played appealingly by Sofia Hublitz, highlight her legerdemain whilst shoplifting beer and seem to be intended to put her in some kind of forefront.

But after Leo gets to deliver her probably contractually obliged Big Speech To The Parole Board, with her stolidly crooked lawyer played by Mark Boone Junior at her side, the story goes wobbly in a number of ways. The big heist seems to have been staged in a ghost town. Swab wants to get to “Heat” but he can’t get anything up to a proper temperature.

And in a crucial conversation between Hartnett and Boone, Boone decides, internally, I suppose, to take a cue from Jack Starrett’s work as Gabby Johnson in Mel Brooks ’ “ Blazing Saddles .” His mumble-mouthed line readings spell disaster for the movie’s denouement, and what may have been intended as a poignant catharsis becomes an infuriating head-scratcher. But if this kind of genre stuff is your cinematic meat, and you’re properly enamored of any of the principal cast members, Swab has enough directorial energy to keep the proceedings watchable at the least. 

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Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Ida Red (2021)

111 minutes

Josh Hartnett as Wyatt Walker

Frank Grillo as Dallas Walker

Melissa Leo as Ida ‘Red’ Walker

Sofia Hublitz as Darla Walker

Deborah Ann Woll as Jeanie Walker

Slaine as Bodie Collier

Beau Knapp as Jay

William Forsythe as Lawrence Twilley

Mark Boone Junior as Benson Drummond

• John David Allen
• David Sardy

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‘ida red’: film review.

John Swab's dramatic crime thriller stars Melissa Leo as a criminal matriarch and Josh Hartnett as the son she tasks with helping her get out of prison before she dies.

By Angie Han

Television Critic

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Plenty happens in Ida Red . People are robbed and killed and kidnapped and arrested; fat stacks of money shuffle between shady people; a tangled family dynamic yields a life-altering secret. And yet what it all amounts to feels like not much at all. Competent enough to be dull and nowhere near bold enough to be interesting, the new crime thriller by John Swab ( Body Brokers ) evaporates from memory even faster than it can dole out plot twists.

The tedium and confusion set in with the very first scene, a truck robbery shot in dark, shaky close-ups that make it nigh impossible to tell who’s who, what’s happening or even exactly how many people are present. It takes a few more scenes for the context to fill in: One of the robbers involved is our protagonist, Wyatt Walker ( Josh Hartnett , trying his best to inject some warmth into a tepid script). He regularly drops by the prison to report to his mother, Ida “Red” Walker ( Melissa Leo ), who’s still the head of their scrappy crime family after 15 years behind Plexiglas.

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Release date: Friday, Nov. 5

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Frank Grillo, Melissa Leo, Sofia Hublitz, William Forsythe, Deborah Ann Woll, George Carroll, Mark Boone Junior, Beau Knapp

Director-screenwriter: John Swab

Now that she’s dying of some vaguely defined illness, Wyatt’s mission is to get her out of prison so she doesn’t spend her last days in there. But his bloody work — or, more accurately, the bloody and very sloppy work of his uncle Dallas (Frank Grillo) — attracts the attention of an FBI special agent (William Forsythe), who’s working with a local cop (George Carroll), who happens to be married to Wyatt’s sister (Deborah Ann Woll), who’s the mother of Wyatt’s beloved niece (Sofia Hublitz). Much of this is explained in an inelegant but admittedly useful exposition dump, in which Carroll’s Bodie patiently spells out all these relationships, complete with mug shots, as a primer for Forsythe’s Twilley.

The most memorable elements of Ida Red can be divided into two categories. There’s the stuff that sticks because it inspires that nagging what-does-this-remind-me-of feeling — like David Sardy’s overbearing score, which tries to impose Tenet -size grandeur on a modest and middling film that can’t possibly support it. Or Grillo’s performance as the mesh-shirted, cowboy-hatted Dallas, which borrows some of Matthew McConaughey’s sadistic charisma from Killer Joe . Or Leo’s combination of maternal warmth and icy resolve, which brings to mind a plainer version of the mom from Animal Kingdom .

And then there’s the stuff that stands out because it’s just plain inexplicable, like baroque wipe transitions that take the shape of crosses or shutters. There’s a suicide set to Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” because why not, and a long conversation set in a porn theater, also because why not. In the latter, the cinema screen is blurred to oblivion but the moans and groans become distracting background noise, desperately trying to inject some edginess into an otherwise dry exchange of information. Meanwhile, more than one twist is unveiled so awkwardly that a viewer might wonder if their mind had simply wandered off during a crucial moment earlier in the film, and feel compelled to rewind and check.

Most of Ida Red , however, doesn’t make much of an impression at all. The clichés pile up so quickly they almost seem like they might subvert themselves: Surely the romance between that rebellious teen niece and a local dirtbag (Nicholas Cirillo) isn’t going to end in the most predictable way possible? Surely there’s more to the perpetually cranky Agent Twilley than decades’ worth of cop stereotypes? But Swab’s storytelling never quite gets there. Everything in Ida Red is exactly what it seems to be, no less and certainly no more. Even Leo’s grittiness can only do so much to elevate a climactic monologue that spends most of its words simply recapping the backstory we know already, and barely even tries to reach for loftier themes or deeper emotions.

When Ida Red delivers its first fatal gunshot, about 10 minutes in, it comes as a jolt, sudden and graphic enough to signal that this film isn’t messing around. But a gun to the head becomes most everyone’s solution to most everything in this movie, and by the end of the movie, the sight of bullets tearing through bodies has become so familiar as to feel mundane. Nothing kills excitement like endless repetition — and Ida Red turns out to be just the latest faint echo of stories we’ve heard too many times already.

Full credits

Distributor: Saban Films Production company: Roxwell Films Cast: Josh Hartnett, Frank Grillo, Melissa Leo, Sofia Hublitz, William Forsythe, Deborah Ann Woll, George Carroll, Mark Boone Junior, Beau Knapp, Nicholas Cirillo Director-screenwriter: John Swab Producers: Jeremy M. Rosen, John Swab, Robert Ogden Barnum Executive producers: Shanan Becker, William V. Bromiley, Jonathan Saba, Ness Saban, Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, Ali Jazayeri, Howard Scott, Joelle Scott, Viviana Zarragoitia Cinematographer: Matt Clegg Art director: Katy Martin Costume designer: Stefanie Del Papa Editor: John David Allen Composer: David Sardy Casting director: Jeremy M. Rosen

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Ida Red Reviews

“Ida Red” doesn’t always seem sure of itself or of the best way to get to its fairly predictable end. But John Swab does a good job building a family dynamic that’s both interesting and believable.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2022

The cast really sells this movie and makes it a strong ensemble piece.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 7, 2021

Ida Red, unfortunately, seems to fall into the trap of emulating better crime dramas instead of trying to stand out on the merits of its own story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 7, 2021

Genre pictures, thin on surprises and big on grit, sink or swim on their forward momentum. This Tulsa-filmed B-movie gangland thriller never has that.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 5, 2021

Some intriguing ideas about loyalty and redemption are offset by the formulaic trappings of this crime thriller that squanders a strong cast.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2021

The storytelling in this crime drama is far from clean, and the screenplay drags out quite a few stale old chestnuts, but it has a good pulpy quality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 5, 2021

Swab wants to get to Heat but he can't get anything up to a proper temperature.

[T]he movie overlooks the one element that might have elevated it above formula: these characters.

Except for its unusual locale, it offers nothing that other stabs at neo-noir thrillers haven't done better.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Nov 4, 2021

Swab can't bring the film to life, with the finished picture playing like a work-in-progress cut.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Nov 3, 2021

As the film progresses, John Swab's film gets increasingly bogged down in a plot which becomes more and more convoluted and confusing. Which is a shame really as Ida Red shows a lot of promise.

Full Review | Nov 3, 2021

Harnett seems unwilling or incapable of expressing the necessary desperation to fit the film's events and Swab's direction is not aiding him in his efforts.

In spite of a script that is wholly derivative at every turn, there's something actually compelling about the gonzo sum package, even its clichés becoming almost comforting after a while.

This is the closest thing to Animal Kingdom that I've seen since, well, Animal Kingdom, and is worth having on your radar.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 3, 2021

Ida Red is decidedly plot-focused, but the plot hinges on a reveal that doesn't elevate the story in any meaningful way because none of the characters have been adequately developed

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 2, 2021

Nothing kills excitement like endless repetition - and Ida Red turns out to be just the latest faint echo of stories we've heard too many times already.

Full Review | Oct 27, 2021

The second half has too many unexplained plot leaps but the earlier emphasis on family dynamics saves this action-crime thriller.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2021

There is a certain pleasure in seeing a fairly new voice essay such familiar turf with steady professionalism, even if Swab at this stage has yet to develop much of a distinctive personal style.

Full Review | Aug 12, 2021

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Common sense media reviewers.

Familiar but bloody crime drama has sharp characters.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

There are no pure, good motivations/themes/acts in

The characters are mainly violent people who've do

White men drive this story, although a strong matr

Guns and shooting. Blood spurts. Bloody shootout;

Characters meet at a porno theater: Sex noises can

Strong, frequent language includes "f--k," "s--t,"

Teens (supporting characters) steal and drink beer

Parents need to know that Ida Red is a crime drama about a man (Josh Hartnett) who's trying to get his crime boss mother (Melissa Leo) out of prison. Violence is very strong, with lots of guns and shooting. Many characters shot and killed, with blood spurts and bloody corpses. One character dies via suicide,…

Positive Messages

There are no pure, good motivations/themes/acts in this movie. Family members try to stick up for one another, but that involves crime and violence. Even a final "good deed" involves a bag of stolen money.

Positive Role Models

The characters are mainly violent people who've done/are doing illegal things or seem to have a tendency toward violence or trouble. The only character who comes across as decent, Jeanie, refuses to forgive or speak to her family members.

Diverse Representations

White men drive this story, although a strong matriarch is the one in charge of the crime family. A Black man with power appears in one scene.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Guns and shooting. Blood spurts. Bloody shootout; many characters die (bloody corpses). Character dies by suicide (ties bootlace around neck). Characters are struck with a gun butt and smothered with a pillow. Person punched, hood pulled over head, thrown in car trunk. Teen robs store with gun. Violent death metal music heard.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Characters meet at a porno theater: Sex noises can be heard coming from the screen, and blurry images from the bottom portion of the screen are seen in the background. Young characters (including a teen) go into a bathroom for sex; nothing shown. Woman in underwear.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong, frequent language includes "f--k," "s--t," "motherf----r," "bulls--t," "p---y," "son of a bitch," "ass."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Teens (supporting characters) steal and drink beers. Teen smoking. Teen gets in trouble for drinking a beer at school. Adults occasionally smoke cigarettes and drink beer.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Ida Red is a crime drama about a man ( Josh Hartnett ) who's trying to get his crime boss mother ( Melissa Leo ) out of prison. Violence is very strong, with lots of guns and shooting. Many characters shot and killed, with blood spurts and bloody corpses. One character dies via suicide, and a teen robs a store with a gun. The same teen goes into a bathroom to have sex with another character, though nothing is shown. Characters also meet up in an adult movie theater; blurry images from the lower half of a pornographic movie are seen, and sex noises are audible. Language is strong and frequent, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," and more. Teens smoke cigarettes and steal and drink cans of beer; a teen girl gets in trouble for drinking beer at school. Adults also drink and smoke. The movie a little convoluted and a little clichéd, but the sharp characters and a good pulpy quality make it worth a look for mature viewers. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Cliché movie worth watching

What's the story.

In IDA RED, crime boss Ida "Red" Walker ( Melissa Leo ) is in dying in prison. Her son, Wyatt Walker ( Josh Hartnett ), and Wyatt's tough Uncle Dallas ( Frank Grillo ) will stop at nothing to get her out before she passes. They plan a robbery of a drug delivery truck, which goes south. Dallas kills all the witnesses, which draws the attention of cop Bodie Collier (George Carroll, a.k.a. Slaine), who also happens to be married to Wyatt's sister, Jeanie ( Deborah Ann Woll ). Bodie and Jeanie are raising rebellious 15-year-old Darla ( Sofia Hublitz ), who, like her uncles, seems drawn to trouble. Wyatt and Dallas threaten a member of the prison board to release Ida on parole and then set off for a multi-million-dollar robbery that, if all goes well, will leave the family set for life.

Is It Any Good?

The storytelling in this crime drama is far from clean, and the screenplay drags out quite a few stale old chestnuts, but it has a good pulpy quality. John Swab 's Ida Red gets off on the right foot with its characters, and the actors do a good job of bringing those characters to life. Wyatt has a legitimate business that covers up his criminal activities, and he's capable of being charming as well as brutal. His visits to his mother in prison reveal that Red is the one who's in charge of everything, and Leo is powerful in the role; she recalls the "Smurf Cody" character from both the movie and TV series Animal Kingdom , as well as Margaret Wycherly's Ma Jarrett in White Heat (1949). Grillo is a standout, choosing to go over the top (as he did in Boss Level ) and coming out mesmerizingly psychopathic. (He does a little dance to Naked Eyes' "Promises Promises" before dispatching one of his victims.)

Most of the other characters seem to have real inner lives, or at least specific bits of business to perform, such as cop William Forsythe forever shoving pieces of broccoli-green gum into his mouth, or bearded lawyer Mark Boone Junior lunching at a sushi-train cafe. Some of the dialogue includes groaners like "I'm getting too old for this s--t" or "one last job and we're out," and some of the movie's ideas and events feel tacked-on, not quite fitting into the rest of the story. But Ida Red has its share of unique touches, such as Wyatt and Dallas' attempt to set up a meeting with a mob boss, as well as a spiky B movie quality. It embraces its under-the-radar cheapness and seems unafraid to try off-the-wall things like using Madonna's lush, romantic "Crazy for You" as backdrop for a shocking moment of violence.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Ida Red 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

How does the movie portray teenage sexual activity ? Do you agree with the way it's depicted?

How did you feel about teen characters drinking and smoking ? Does the movie make substance use look glamorous? Are there consequences? Why is that important?

What are the family relationships like in this movie? Despite all the violence, crime, and lying, do the family members seem to love each other? Is there anything here that's similar to your own family relationships?

Is Ida "Red" Walker a role model in any way? Does she have any positive characteristics? Where does her power come from?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 5, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : November 5, 2021
• Cast : Josh Hartnett , Melissa Leo , Frank Grillo
• Director : John Swab
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Saban Films
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 111 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong violence, language throughout and some sexual content
• Last updated : May 2, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Ida Red (2021)

November 2, 2021 by Robert Kojder

Ida Red , 2021.

Written and Directed by John Swab. Starring Josh Hartnett, Frank Grillo, Melissa Leo, Sofia Hublitz, Deborah Ann Woll, George Carroll, Beau Knapp, William Forsythe, Mark Boone Junior, Nicholas Cirillo, Billy Blair, Ben Hall, and John Swab.

Ida “Red” Walker may not survive her terminal illness while incarcerated for armed robbery. She turns to her son, Wyatt, for one last job and a chance to regain her freedom.

Characters don’t need to be likable or morally pure to be interesting or worth backing, but there needs to be a reason to care. With Ida Red , writer and director John Swab (who also released the junkie rehab center takedown Body Brokers earlier this year) somewhat throws viewers into the thick of things, forcing us to piece simple enough things together but without any driving motivation or engagement. Eventually, the reasoning behind this lack of information is made clear, but at the cost of a rather bland narrative.

In the late 2000s, Ida Red follows the Walker family, led by the titular Ida (Melissa Leo with barely anything to do, which is also not a good sign considering every character’s story arc relates to her in some way). Law enforcement describes her as the female Jimmy Hoffa, running a criminal empire until her husband was murdered in a botched bank robbery that led to her sentencing for life. Now, she is suffering from a terminal illness, as the rest of her family ruthlessly fights to get her parole so that she can live out her final days in relative peace.

Ida is frequently visited by her son Wyatt (Josh Hartnett) and given medication to deal with her pain. She also tasks Wyatt and his uncle Dallas (Frank Grillo) with jobs here and there, although the plan is to get the matriarch of prison and everyone out of the game. Ida has never met her granddaughter Darla (Sofia Hublitz), a problematic teenager usually sent home from school for bad behavior such as drinking alcohol and generally getting involved with the wrong crowd, including an equally delinquent love interest. Darla also doesn’t get along much with her mother, Jeanie (Deborah Ann Woll), who happens to resent Ida and would prefer if her daughter never met her grandmother. Naturally, the testosterone-fueled uncles prove to be an enabling influence on her poor behavior, whereas she doesn’t have much of a relationship with her policeman father, Bodie (George Carroll).

If you have already lost track of this expansive family tree, don’t worry because characters will break things down in real-time. Meanwhile, Wyatt and Dallas are in the process of eliminating leads after a sideways truck robbery for more of Ida’s medication. Frank Grillo charmingly mimics a cowboy while murdering associates in cold blood for most of the running time, possibly the only entertaining character in Ida Red . Elsewhere, the relatives attempt to work the system however they can to get Ida released. In between all that, Darla learns some tough lessons about boys while becoming enamored with the idea of becoming a robber like the men she idolizes.

The results are one of those cases where while there’s nothing to slander regarding the talent in front of the camera (there are plenty more welcome character actors here such as William Forsythe and Mark Boone Junior), and there are one or two competently shot and suspenseful shootouts (not shy on some crowd-pleasing blood splatter, either), the story is never engaging and lacks urgency. So little is known about these characters and why they are worth investing in that there’s almost no purpose or stake in how the situation shakes out. Ida Red is decidedly plot-focused, but the plot hinges on a reveal that doesn’t elevate the story in any meaningful way because none of the characters have been adequately developed. So, in the end, a host of familiar and likable veteran actors simply have nothing to do. All of that is without acknowledging the nonsensical ending.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Oklahoma filmmaker John Swab shows cinematic progress with new thriller 'Ida Red'

John Swab's vision is getting clearer.  

With strong performances, solid pacing and intriguing cinematic choices, the Oklahoma filmmaker's gritty new thriller "Ida Red" proves the evident progress Swab has been making in practicing his craft.  

Starring Oscar winner Melissa Leo ("The Fighter"), Marvel Cinematic Universe standout Frank Grillo ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier") and leading man Josh Hartnett (“Pearl Harbor"), "Ida Red" is out Nov. 5 in select theaters, on digital and on demand.   

The crime drama is the fourth feature film Swab has made in his hometown of Tulsa in the past few years, following 2016's "Let Me Make You a Martyr," 2019's "Run with the Hunted" and the February release "Body Brokers," which also starred Grillo and Leo.  

For subscribers: Oklahoma filmmaker John Swab taps hometown for 'Ida Red'

A self-taught filmmaker, Swab has opted to learn the cinematic arts by making movies, and "Ida Red" shows that the emerging auteur's practice is paying off. 

A former Tulsa resident, Leo plays Ida "Red" Walker, the matriarch of a Tulsa crime family who is battling a terminal illness while serving a 25-year prison sentence. Her son, Wyatt (Hartnett), has kept the family business going with the help of his uncle, Dallas (Grillo), since she's been behind bars.   

But Wyatt is increasingly distracted by family drama: keeping his mother from dying in prison, keeping an eye on his impetuous teenage niece Darla (Sofia Hublitz, "Ozark") and keeping the peace with his sister Jeanie (Deborah Ann Woll, "True Blood"), who has turned her back on the illegal activities of her kinfolk. When one of those criminal acts goes awry, Jeanie's husband, local detective Bodie Collier (Slaine, "The Town"), is joined by FBI agent Lawrence Twilley (William Forsythe, "Raising Arizona"), to investigate — and the investigation quickly hits close to home.   

"Ida Red" made its world premiere in August at Switzerland's 74th Locarno Film Festival, with Saban Films picking up the North American and UK rights and moving for a quick release. Those are good signs that Swab is making headway as an independent filmmaker.  

Even more promising are the on-screen advancements for the writer, director and producer. He's tightened up his storytelling, filled in plot holes and picked up the pacing. He keeps the conflict high and the tension building.  

Swab and producing partner Jeremy Rosen have always done yeoman's work in recruiting top Hollywood character actors for their Oklahoma-made movies, but "Ida Red" gives those performers better material for crafting their work.  

The Tulsa native has established himself as a filmmaker with an eye for Heartland crime dramas with an obvious 1970s influence, graphic violence and an unflinching look at middle America's seedy underbelly. But his fourth feature finds Swab developing his unique artistic style as he experiments with bold wipes, swipes and cuts as well as audacious musical choices.  

The results are sometimes mixed, but they are distinctive and often memorable. In fact, audiences might not ever think of the pop chestnuts Naked Eyes' "Promises, Promises" and Madonna's "Crazy for You" the same way again after seeing "Ida Red."  

Swab already has another movie finished and is getting ready to begin filming in Tulsa on his sixth feature. It will be interesting to see what he's learned and what he wants to try next. 

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Review: ‘Ida Red’ Melissa Leo, Josh Hartnett, And Frank Grillo Are A Close-Knit Crime Family Looking For A Way Out

Ida Red  is quite the cracking little crime thriller, the latest from Tulsa, Oklahoma’s own writer/director John Swab. In Swab’s second film of the year following the drug industry drama  Body Brokers , a tangled family dynamic of lowlifes and criminals take orders from the titular family matriarch (Melissa Leo) even though she’s been locked up for fifteen years. Heists get pulled, the body count gets stacked up, people get double-crossed, and a long-held secret nearly destroys everything. This is the closest thing to  Animal Kingdom  that I’ve seen since, well,  Animal Kingdom , and is worth having on your radar.

Swab smartly reunites with two key cogs of his  Body Brokers  cast; Oscar-nominee Leo and the always-great, always-intimidating Frank Grillo. The latter plays family psychopath Dallas Walker, Ida’s brother and the one they call on when things need to get bloody. Josh Hartnett plays the “golden child”, Wyatt Walker, who gets into the family business because “it’s in our blood.”  But not so for his sister, Jeanie (Deborah Ann Woll), who has married good-guy cop Bodie (played by rapper Slaine in a real turn for him), which puts her in an awkward position. There’s also her rebellious daughter Darla (Sofia Hublitz), who has problems of her own just being a teen. It doesn’t help that she looks up to Wyatt more than she does her own parents.

A connection to Swab’s earlier film is made in the opening scene, as a truck full of drugs is hijacked by the Walker clan and a couple of hired goons. Swab’s direction here is a bit too dark for its own good; you can see the kind of mood he’s setting in this grimy town. But it also makes it difficult to tell who is doing what, and when shots start getting fired it’s hard to see who is doing the shooting and who is doing the dying. Soon after, Wyatt pays a visit to his incarcerated mom, who already knows that the job went south and needs to be cleaned up. But there’s more; she’s sick and doesn’t want to spend her last days behind bars. Wyatt makes it his mission to make sure she won’t.

A big part of  Ida Red  is in exploring the duality in Wyatt’s life. He seems like a decent enough guy; a businessman and someone who takes time out to spend with his family. But the guy has a rap sheet a mile long, and his charming personality hides the dangerous criminal underneath. At heart he’s just a momma’s boy. Dallas, on the other hand, is terrifying. Grillo has always been an imposing guy. He looks like he has taken his share of punches and dished out even more. As an unhinged psycho he’s off the damn chain. In one skin-crawling scene he blows the brains out of the brother of one of the truck hijackers, then seductively taunts the girlfriend of the other (Beau Knapp) to the sound of “Promises Promises”, before killing her, too. Some of Swab’s musical choices are weird as Hell, like a suicide set to Madonna’s “Crazy For You”. The incongruence is perplexing but also keeps  Ida Red   from being as dull as so many of these grim, low-budget crime flicks tend to be.

While the script is riddled with cliches, the cast makes the most of them, producing a number of really excellent performances. I really dig Hartnett more as he’s moved away from the A-list spotlight. He’s learned to use his boyish good looks to play devious, sinister characters and is quite good at it now. Leo doesn’t get as much to do as she’s talking through a prison phone most of the time, but her hopeful presence weighs heavy enough that a final act appeal to the parole board tugs at the heartstrings even though you know Ida doesn’t deserve our sympathy. It’s a strong reminder that Leo is an Oscar-nominated actress who can really bring it with the right material. She deserves more. But the real stand out for me was William Forsythe, who swaggers into the film as FBI agent Lawrence Twilley. Playing to every Texas Ranger stereotype he can find, Forsythe speaks little but offers a bold contrast to Slaine who is more reserved, more serious, than the boisterous street lyricist has ever been before. Those unfamiliar with Slaine’s screen work will recall him as heavies in Gone Baby Gone ,  Killing Them Softly , and  The Town . He’s nothing like those characters here. I had to check and make sure it was him.

For all of the great character work being done,  Ida Red  suffers from a script that is either incoherent or just plain sloppy. To say the Walker family’s various relationships are knotty would be an understatement, but a major plot twist about Darla and Jeanie  comes out of nowhere then just lays there, leaving us stumped. Why did that particular swerve need to be part of this movie?  Swab occasionally favors exposition dumps to try and smooth out the screenplay’s rough patches, but at other times he’s far too vague. When the major motivating force behind Wyatt’s actions is resolved after just a brief, hushed conversation it makes one wonder what the Hell the entire movie was for. Even so, Swab misses the opportunity for a perfect getaway chase send-off with a couple of extra scenes too many.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when the entire cast is this good and the tension at such a high level. With a movie like this you don’t go in expecting originality, just for it to be exciting, and Ida Red definitely grabs you along for a crazy ride through the Oklahoma underbelly.

Ida Red  opens in theaters and VOD on November 5th.

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REVIEW: “Ida Red” (2021)

The grimy blue-collar crime thriller “Ida Red” opens with a stylishly filmed late night heist. Josh Hartnett and Frank Grillo masquerading as DEA agents pull over an 18-wheeler under the guise of a “routine” traffic stop. But as often happens in movies like this, things gets messy and (especially in this case) the ramifications of the botched job prove serious. It sets off an ugly domino effect that propels this gritty and tightly-made indie.

The story is set in Oklahoma and takes place sometimes in 2010. Hartnett plays Wyatt Walker, a mechanic at an auto dealership by day and an armed robber by night. He’s part of a notorious family of criminals led by his mother, the family matriarch, Ida “Red” Walker (an appropriately scary Melissa Leo). She’s serving 25 years in prison but still calls the shots. She’s also terminally ill. “ Don’t let me die in here ,” she makes Wyatt pledge.

Grillo is delightfully unhinged playing Wyatt’s sociopathic uncle Dallas. He’s the family member who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty when needed, and as one particularly unsettling scene shows us, he seems to enjoy it. Dallas is the brother of Wyatt’s father who was killed during an attempted bank robbery, the same job which put Ida in prison. Now Wyatt and Dallas are left to do the legwork while the sickly Ida tries to keep things running smoothly from behind bars.

The one kink in the Walker outfit is Wyatt’s sister and Ida’s estranged daughter Jeanie (Deborah Ann Wolf). She and her lawman husband Bodie (George Carroll) disapprove of the family’s criminal enterprise which has led to some sizable brother/sister tension. To throw more gas on the already flammable situation, Jeanie’s 15-year-old delinquent daughter Darla (Sofia Hublitz) looks up to Wyatt.

Written and directed by John Swab, “Ida Red” revolves aroun a fairly basic central storyline. It’s pretty simple and it’s nothing we haven’t seen several times before. What separates it is the interest Swab has in his characters. More that just a crime story, Swab is far more intrigued by who these people are and the dynamic between them. By honing in on the many complicated relationships, Swab is able to dig into a number of compelling themes. Bloodlines, generations, and breaking destructive family cycles.

That last one really comes through in Darla’s character. “ Why do you do it ?” she asks Wyatt concerning his life of crime. “ It’s in our blood ,” he solemnly replies. In many ways her story is the film’s moral centerpiece. She’s at a crossroads and the two paths she has in front of her lead in dramatically different life-effecting directions. Does she follow her uncles who love and protect her but are on a path full of violence? Or does she set off down her own path – one that gives her a chance at hope and happiness?

The heat turns up a notch when Bodie and FBI Agent Lawrence Twilley (William Forsythe) get a sniff that puts them on Wyatt’s trail. It leads to the proverbial “ one more job and we’re done” which never quite goes as planned. Along the way Swab works up some pretty good tension and the handful of action scenes (most notably a “Heat” inspired downtown shootout) are plenty fierce. There are a few odd touches as well (I’m still trying make sense of the weird Madonna “Crazy for You” needle drop during a police interrogation room).

“Ida Red” doesn’t always seem sure of itself or of the best way to get to its fairly predictable end. But John Swab does a good job building a family dynamic that’s both interesting and believable. The setting works well and the performances manage the tricky job of conveying both menace and empathy. Overall, the movie might not be anything new or unique, but it does have the kick you look for in crime thrillers of this kind. “Ida Red” releases November 5th in select theaters and on VOD.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

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4 thoughts on “ review: “ida red” (2021) ”.

Josh Hartnett seems to be trying to make a comeback. I’m actually rooting for him as he is decent at times as I think he was pushed way too hard by Hollywood when he was just trying to be a good actor.

Well said. I think he’s a good actor who had room to grow. Then is sorta vanished. He does a good job here.

Have been a fan of Hartnett for a long time, so I’m in for this.

Me too and I love seeing him still working. Hope to see more from him. He’s quite good here.

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Ida red review: good performances can’t save generic, undercooked crime drama.

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The crime drama is not a genre that is lacking in material. There are a plethora of films and TV shows released every year focusing on this very thing, which makes it hard for projects that have generally decent plots and good performances to stand out. There needs to be a vision, an ambition to make something good and memorable. Ida Red , unfortunately, seems to fall into the trap of emulating better crime dramas instead of trying to stand out on the merits of its own story.

Led by Melissa Leo, Josh Hartnett and Frank Grillo, Ida Red is a film that follows a crime family and the ramifications of a job gone wrong. Leo plays the titular Ida Red, who is leading the family business behind bars, while her son Wyatt (Hartnett) and brother Dallas (Grillo) handle the actual day-to-day operations. Dallas is a crass and sadistic character; Wyatt is the typical “nice guy”. Beyond these characters, however, everyone is a cliché with nothing more to offer. All that is worth grasping is the commitment to which the actors play their crime drama archetypes. 

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The film's downfall lies in its format. In the span of nearly two hours, the audience is introduced to several characters that factor into the dysfunctional family dynamic, each with their own troubles. In a limited series perhaps, the story of how Jeanie, Wyatt’s sister, functions while being married to a lawman — who is hellbent on arresting her family members — and the mother to a teenage daughter would have room to expand upon. The subplot regarding Darla, Jeanie’s daughter, acting up and having a fondness for her criminal family members is an interesting angle that cannot be properly explored while the main plot is unfolding.

As for the titular character, Ida Red seemingly has a ton of power, but the film is neither told from her perspective nor does it offer any understanding of how she is the foreboding presence in this crime syndicate while being terminally ill and locked up. With all that is at play in Ida Red , all that winds up happening, unfortunately, is that the tension and thrill is defused throughout the crime drama rather than being ramped up. Ultimately, the film is uneven and lacks clarity. While it may have all the right pieces to ideally work, it cannot position them in a way that leads to a satisfying conclusion and Ida Red  mostly fumbles its way to the end.

While the film struggles with creating a clear narrative and building suspense, what keeps the audience's attention are the character dynamics. Josh Hartnett feels at ease in this role, with years of being a solid working actor, he reminds viewers that he is an actor capable of keeping our attention. Sofia Hublitz feels much too old to play a 16-year-old, but she is charming enough to create a compelling character in Darla. Melissa Leo is obviously great and does a lot with what she is given.

While the ensemble is well-cast, Ida Red  as a whole feels like a blast from the past. With old-school transitions, traditional camerawork and a score that is reminiscent of those found in the crime dramas from the 1980s and 1990s, Ida Red is merely a replication of a good crime drama but without the substance.

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Ida Red was released in the United States on November 5, 2021 by Saban Films. The film is 110 minutes long and rated R for language throughout, strong violence, some sexual content.

Ida Red is a crime thriller directed by John Swab. The film stars Melissa Leo as Ida "Red" Walker, a career criminal serving a lengthy prison sentence. Josh Hartnett plays her son, Wyatt, who becomes entangled in a high-stakes heist to secure his mother's release.

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• 2.5 star movies

Directed by John Swab, and starring Josh Hartnett, Frank Grillo, and Melissa Leo, Ida Red follows a crime family and the aftermath of a job gone wrong. It's a thriller that was supposed to be about the effects of upholding a legacy and intergenerational crime but is instead a lackluster heist film with flat characters.

An echo of a greater story. Ida Red is essentially a copy and paste flick that adds nothing new to the “one more big score and I’m out” subgenre. It is not captivating enough to keep you focused, but it's bearable enough to keep you watching. The script needed to be fleshed out more; certain aspects of the story felt rushed, leaving characters and subplots to be underdeveloped. Ultimately, Ida Red’s biggest misstep is focusing too much on plot movement and not enough on character dimension. The characters' identities revolve around crime and there is little sense of them as people. It is because of this the film feels as though it’s knocking off a checklist rather than supplying a thoughtful narrative. Why should I care about these characters when the story itself doesn’t?

Elements that did work. Ida Red is buoyed by a strong cast. They are nicely in tune with one another, even though there was a ton of dialogue that didn’t say anything. Josh Hartnett churns out a decent performance. You can tell he’s trying his best with the given script. Despite being the titular character, Melissa Leo provides a glorified cameo and is poster fodder. She has like 7 minutes of screentime and effortlessly delivers that shit like it’s just another Tuesday. Frank Grillo is the standout. He goes all in and it is fantastic. He has a dance sequence in a fishnet shirt that will leave you terrified but maybe also turned on? His performance commands attention. I will give John Swab his flowers for being able to direct a strong cast. He also had some tightly shot sequences that worked well, but overall, his film is average at best.

Elements that didn’t work. Script aside, the score and editing also didn’t help this film much. David Sardy's score is far too big for this film and made everything more intense than it was. It had a way of tricking you into thinking something big was going down when in reality, the characters are just having an inconsequential conversation driving down the highway. There were also some rough editing choices, like showing a character sitting in a car when we just saw said character get out of the car. There were even some laughable transitions, one of which included a wipe. It’s like they hired a college sophomore using Final Cut Pro.

What could have been a tense slow-burn ended up being a subpar crime thriller with no sense of character.

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IDA Red Movie Cast, Plot and Everything to Know

Dec. 7, 2022

Release Date: Friday, November 5, 2021 Limited Friday, November 5, 2021 VOD / Digital

William Forsythe, Melissa Leo, Josh Hartnett, Deborah Ann Woll, Beau Knapp, Mark Boone Junior, Frank Grillo, John Swab, Sofia Hublitz, George Carroll

R Action N/A

72% WILL SEE

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IDA Red was released in limited movie theaters on Friday, November 5, 2021 . There were 18 other movies released on the same date, including Eternals , Finch and One Shot . As a limited release, IDA Red was shown in select movie theaters in major markets.

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American Crime Drama Film “Ida Red” Review: Good Performances Can’t Save Undercooked Movie

A lot is happening in Ida Red. People are robbed, killed, and imprisoned; piles of money are mixed among shady people; a moving family reveals a life-changing secret. And yet, what seems like everything sounds like nothing at all.

Skilled enough to be dull and nowhere near brave enough to attract attention, the new crime of John Swab (Body Brokers) evaporates from memory much faster than it could twist the plot.

Anger and confusion started with the first scene, the hijacking of the trucks fired into the darkness, near the moving eyes making it difficult to say who, what was happening or how many people there were.

A few more scenes are needed for the context to complete: One of the robbers involved is our character, Wyatt Walker (Josh Hartnett, trying his best to add warmth to the excellent text). She regularly passes the jail to report to her mother, Ida “Red” Walker (Melissa Leo), the head of their disgraced criminal family 15 years after Plexiglas.

Now that he is dying of an unexplained illness, Wyatt’s goal is to get him out of prison, so he doesn’t have to spend his last days there. But his bloodthirsty career – or, more accurately, the brutal and careless work of his uncle Dallas (Frank Grillo) – draws the attention of a special FBI agent (William Forsythe), who works with a local police officer (George Carroll), who may be married to his sister. of Wyatt (Deborah Ann Woll), mother of Wyatt’s niece (Sofia Hublitz).

Much of this is explained in the context of the unjustified but admittedly useless waste, where Carroll’s Bodie patiently describes all of these relationships, culminating in a cup shoot, as the beginning of Forsythe’s Twilley.

The unique elements of Ida Red can be divided into two categories. There are tangible things because it encourages that persistence of what it does – this-reminds me-of-a-sense – as a result of David Sardy, who tries to force the size of Tenet into a modest and medium-sized film that can’t support it. 

Grillo’s performance as a mesh-shirts Dallas, with cowboy hats, borrowing some of Matthew McConaughey’s sad charisma from Killer Joe. Or Leo’s combination of maternal warmth and firm determination, reminiscent of the vivid type of motherhood of the Animal Kingdom.

And then there are the things that stand out because they are just plain unexplainable like baroque erase changes that take the form of crosses or lids. There’s a suicide set in Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” why not, and a lengthy discussion posted on the sex scene, and why not.

In the end, the cinema screen does not look good, but the moans and moans have disturbing background noise, trying desperately to inject some sharpness in the exchange of information in another way. At that moment, more than one twist is revealed in such a strange way that the viewer may wonder if his mind wandered at a crucial moment in front of the film and feel compelled to postpone and explore.

Most Ida Red, however, does not comment at all. These speeches accumulate so quickly that they almost seem as if they could destroy themselves: Is it possible that the love between that rebellious nephew and the local garbage bag (Nicholas Cirillo) will not end in the predicted way? Indeed there is more to Agent Twilley that never ends than decades of police opinion?

But telling Swab’s story doesn’t get there. Everything in Ida Red is the same as it seems to be, nothing less and certainly no more. Even Leo’s gentleness can do much to elevate a weather monologue that destroys most of its words by simply telling a story we already know and not even trying to reach higher bodies or deep emotions.

When Ida Red unveils her first lethal shot, about 10 minutes later, it comes as a shock, sudden and clear enough to show that the film is not spoiled. But the gun in the head becomes everyone’s solution to everything in the movie, and by the end of the film, seeing bullets in the body has become so commonplace that it sounds strange. Nothing kills happiness like endless repetition – and Ida Red turns out to be the latest short echo we’ve heard so many times.

The decline of the film is still in its infancy. Over about two hours, the audience is introduced to several characters contributing to the family’s inefficiency, each with its own set of problems.

In a limited series, perhaps, the story of how Jeanie, Wyatt’s sister, worked while married to a law-abiding man – determined to arrest her family members – and the mother of a young daughter might have a place to expand. A small episode about Darla, Jeanie’s daughter, who participates in and loves members of her criminal family is an exciting angle that can best be explored when the main plot unfolds.

As for the revered character, Ida Red seems to be very powerful, but the film is not told of her vision and does not give an idea of ​​what she is like in this criminal group while dying and incarcerated.

So all the play on Ida Red, all that happens, unfortunately, is that tension and excitement are eliminated in every crime drama rather than collected. In the end, the film does not fit and does not have clarity. While it may have all the right pieces for it to work correctly, it can’t put itself in a way that leads to a satisfying conclusion, and Ida Red fades a lot to the end.

Although the film struggles to create vivid narratives and create suspicions, what keeps viewers’ attention is the flexibility of the characters. Josh Hartnett feels comfortable in this role, with his years of hard work, reminding viewers that he is an actor who can keep our attention.

Sofia Hublitz feels too old to play a 16-year-old, but she is charming enough to create a compelling character in Darla. Melissa Leo is beautiful and does a lot with what she is given.

Although the collection is well distributed, Ida Red as a whole sounds like an old explosion. With the transformation of the old school, the work of traditional cameras, and the memorial points of those found in crime dramas from the 1980s and 1990s, Ida Red is simply a repetition of a good crime drama but nothing.

edited and proofread by: nikit sharma

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'Red One' trailer: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans headline holiday film

June 25 (UPI) -- Amazon MGM Studios is teasing the new holiday film Red One .

The studio shared a trailer for the movie Tuesday featuring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans . Advertisement

Red One is a star-studded Christmas action film starring Johnson as the North Pole's head of security. The character teams up with the world's most infamous bounty hunter (Evans) to save Christmas after Santa Claus ( J.K. Simmons ) is kidnapped.

Red One is written by Chris Morgan, a writer for the Fast & Furious franchise, and directed by Jake Kasdan ( Bad Teacher , Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ).

The film opens in theaters Nov. 15.

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After Santa Claus – Code Name: RED ONE – is kidnapped, the North Pole's Head of Security must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.

Red One stars Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Wesley Kimmel, and J.K. Simmons. The film is directed by Jake Kasdan and produced by Hiram Garcia, p.g.a., Dwayne Johnson, p.g.a., Dany Garcia, Chris Morgan, p.g.a., Jake Kasdan p.g.a, Melvin Mar

Red One releases into theaters on November 15.

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‘Red One’ Trailer: Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans Team Up to Rescue a Kidnapped Santa Claus in Amazon MGM’s Christmas Action Movie

By Jack Dunn

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It’s Christmas in June!

Amazon MGM Studios has released the trailer for the yuletide action-adventure “Red One,” starring Dwayne Johnson , Chris Evans and J.K. Simmons as Saint Nick.

Per the official synopsis, “After Santa Claus (Simmons) – Code Name: ‘Red One’ – is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security (Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.”

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Johnson revealed the poster for “Red One” Monday morning , which resembles a wanted poster for Simmons’ Santa. “All points alert to everyone around the world— be on the lookout for this man. Last seen at the North Pole. If you have any information, please reach out to the E.L.F. North Pole Command Center via the number on the bottom of this official ‘Red One’ poster. WE NEED YOUR HELP. Christmas depends on it. And Nick, buddy, if you’re reading this— I will find you. ~ Callum Drift, Commander of The E.L.F,” Johnson wrote.

Jake Kasdan, director of the “Jumanji” reboots, helms the film. Chris Morgan wrote the script based on a story by Hiram Garcia. Producers include Hiram Garcia, Danny Garcia, Johnson, Morgan, Kasdan and Melvin Mar.

“Red One” hit theaters Nov. 15. Watch the trailer below.

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