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. 

Now playing in theaters and available on digital platforms.

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

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• 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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‘Ida Red’: Locarno Review

By Neil Young 2021-08-11T21:00:00+01:00

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Melissa Leo, Josh Hartnett headline a Oklahoma backwoods-set crime thriller

Source: UPCG

Dir/scr: John Swab.  US. 2021. 111 minutes  

Writer-director John Swab continues his quest to put his midwestern home town of Tulsa on the cinematic map with Ida Red, a brooding, occasionally bloody crime-thriller with noir and western undertones that is chiefly notable for a strong ensemble cast. World-premiering in the audience-friendly Piazza Grande section of Locarno, this is a low/medium-budget American independent film of deliberately old-fashioned stripe.

Swab’s strong suit lies in the selection and handling of his performers

Aimed at a relatively mature audience which may now prefer to download or stream such entertainments, Swab’s competently handled but essentially low-key third solo feature could be a tricky theatrical sell for US distributor Universal. But down the line it may conceivably generate a little awards-season heat for Oscar-winner Melissa Leo, who makes the most of her supporting role as the eponymous Ida, longtime criminal “queenpin” of backwater Oklahoma.

Sentenced to a long stretch behind bars after a heist went catastrophically wrong and left her a widow, perpetually scheming, flame-haired sixtysomething Ida learns she has only months to live. She is determined to expire in the free air of liberty, a desire ardently shared by her family — headed in her absence by nephew Dallas (Frank Grillo) and her son Wyatt (Josh Hartnett), who make their living holding up trucks on remote highways.

Moving fluently between numerous plot-strands and characters, Swab gradually zeroes in on the individual who unexpectedly emerges as next-generation standard-bearer for the clan’s nefarious traditions: precocious 15-year-old high-schooler Darla (Sofia Hublitz). Raised in straight-arrow by fashion by Wyatt’s sister Jeannie (Deborah Ann Woll) — whose husband Bodie (George Carroll) is a cop, no less — Darla initially manifests her kin’s rebellious ways via minor high-school infractions. Romantic travails and family-related revelations see her steadily escalate into more felonious terrain.

The development of Darla from semi-marginal figure to quasi-protagonist is the most susprising element of Swab’s screenplay; he is otherwise fairly content to recycle familiar tropes of the rural-crime sub-genre, most successfully essayed over the past decade by William Friedkin’s Killer Joe (2011) and David Mackenzie’s Hell Or High Water (2016). Swab’s debt to earlier antecedent At Close Range (1986) is meanwhile signalled by his needle-drop deployment of a Madonna hit from the same era, ’Crazy For You’, (James Foley’s original pivoting heavily upon ’Live To Tell’.)

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. The occasional bygone-era elaborate wipe between scenes is perhaps his only significant flourish; too often Swab relies upon the busy score by David Sardy when he needs to amp up the mood.

The writer-director is still something of a relative neophyte, however, having co-directed and co-written Let Me Make You A Martyr ( 2016) with Corey Asraf, before moving on alone to Run With The Hunted (2019) and Body Brokers , which surfaced only this February and also featured several faces from Ida Red including Leo and Grillo. Swab’s fourth solo effort Candy Land is already in post-production.

Each of these downbeat dramas is set in and/or around Tulsa, previously best known movie-wise as the backdrop for Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish (1983). Swab’s ambition of creating and sustaining film-production in the area is a commendable one (the same names keep cropping up on both sides of the camera across all his works), even if this latest enterprise fails to evoke the region in any palpably atmospheric way. Most of the action in Ida Red — mainly set around 2010, and named after the traditional folk song popularised in the 1930s by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys which formed the basis for Chuck Berry’s smash ’Maybellene’ — could be unfolding in almost any rural or semi-rural area of the United States.

Swab’s strong suit, conversely, lies in the selection and handling of his performers. Deborah Ann Woll (as the Walker family’s one ’white sheep’,) Ben Hall (enjoyably channelling John Carradine as an untrustworthy parole-board officer) and Bruce Davis (as a loquacious Black churchman with sinful inclinations) stand out among several better-known names. The latter include millennial pinup Hartnett, continuing his surprise comeback after  a much less taxing role in Guy Ritchie’s Wrath Of Man. Occasionally a thespian himself (including briefly here), Swab is evidently an actors’ director with whom performers both established and inexperienced feel comfortable — a trait that bodes well for his future career in Tulsa and/or beyond. 

P roduction company: Roxwell Films

International sales: Roxwell Films, [email protected]

Producers: Jeremy Rosen, Robert Ogden Barnum, John Swab

Production design: Katy Martin

Editing: John David Allen

Cinematography: Matt Clegg

Music: David Sardy

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

• United States

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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.

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.

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.

Key Release Dates

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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An Innocent Awakened

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By A.O. Scott

• May 1, 2014

Though it takes place in Poland in 1962 — a weary, disenchanted country grinding along under gray, post-Stalinist skies — Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” has some of the structure and feeling of an ancient folk tale. It concerns an orphan who must make her way through a haunted, threatening landscape, protected only by her own good sense and a powerful, not entirely trustworthy companion.

Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a young novice a few days from taking her vows in the convent that has been her only home since infancy when she learns of the existence of a previously unknown aunt named Wanda (Agata Kulesza). If this were actually a fairy tale, Wanda might be both fairy godmother and wicked witch. A former state prosecutor, she boasts grimly of her role in the political show trials of the early 1950s, when Poland’s Communist government used judicial terror (among other methods) to consolidate its power and eliminate its enemies.

A decade later, she is still part of the political elite, though whatever zealotry she might once have had has long since been replaced by cynicism. Chain-smoking and drinking heavily, pursuing one-night stands more out of habit than desire, she is in every way the opposite of her unworldly, pious niece. But Wanda does see a family resemblance and also has a startling piece of news, delivered with a wry, bitter smile as Ida, with her coif and crucifix, sits at the kitchen table: “You’re Jewish.”

This is not a joke — and there is nothing funny about the wartime fate of Poland’s Jews, including Ida’s parents — but “Ida” and its characters are alert to the absurdities of Polish history, as well as its abundant horrors. Mr. Pawlikowski, a Polish-born writer and director who has spent most of his career in England, has reached into his country’s past and grabbed hold of a handful of nettles. “Ida” is a breathtakingly concise film — just 80 minutes long — with a clear, simple narrative line. But within its relatively brief duration and its narrow black-and-white frames, the movie somehow contains a cosmos of guilt, violence and pain. Its intimate drama unfolds at the crossroads where the Catholic, Jewish and Communist strains of Poland’s endlessly and bitterly contested national identity intersect.

Ida and Wanda set out to discover what happened to Ida’s parents, a quest that turns “Ida” into both a road movie and a detective story. They encounter priests and peasants, provincial officials and a saxophonist (Dawid Ogrodnik) whose advanced musical taste (as well as his attraction to Ida, in spite of her habit) provides a hint of youthful ’60s spirit amid the gloom and bad memories.

Mr. Pawlikowski, who started out making documentaries and whose previous fictional features include “Last Resort,” “My Summer of Love” and “The Woman in the Fifth,” can be a wonderfully lucid storyteller. “Ida” is as compact and precise as a novella, a sequence of short, emphatic scenes that reveal the essence of the characters without simplifying them. Having set up an obvious contrast between Wanda and Ida — atheist and believer; woman of the world and sheltered child; sensualist and saint — the film proceeds to complicate each woman’s idea of herself and the other. Their black-and-white conceptions of the world turn grayer by the hour.

This is almost literally true, thanks to Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski’s beautifully misty, piercingly sharp monochrome cinematography. The look of “Ida” — images captured by a mostly stationary camera in the boxy frame associated with old movies — serves an obvious period function. What you are watching could virtually have been made in 1962. (The Polish countryside seems to have cooperated by not changing too much in the decades since.) Until the very end, the audience never hears music unless the people on screen hear it, too, and many of the scenes — at once austere and charged with an intensity that verges on the metaphysical — owe an evident debt to ’60s cinema heroes like Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson.

But “Ida” is hardly an exercise in antiquarian pastiche. It is rather an excavation of truths that remain, 70 years after the Holocaust and a quarter-century after the collapse of Communism, only partially disinterred. And it is, above all, about the spiritual and moral condition of the women, who, between them, occupy nearly every second of this film.

Mr. Pawlikowski’s style of shooting might be described as sympathetically objective. His camera maintains its distance, and he never presumes access to the inner lives of his characters. He keeps them low in the frame, with unusually ample space above their heads, creating a kind of cathedral effect. Ida and Wanda can seem small and alone, lost in a vast and empty universe. But their surroundings often achieve a quiet grandeur, an intimation of divine presence.

There is an implicit argument here between faith and materialism, one that is resolved with wit, conviction and generosity of spirit. Mr. Pawlikowski has made one of the finest European films (and one of most insightful films about Europe, past and present) in recent memory.

But the accomplishment is hardly his alone: “Ida” belongs equally — and on the screen, pre-eminently — to the two Agatas. Ms. Kulesza is a poised and disciplined professional, able to show us both Wanda’s ruthless self-control and its limits. Ms. Trzebuchowska, a student with little previous acting experience, is a natural screen presence and also an enigmatic one. Ida starts out, for the audience and perhaps herself, as an empty vessel, with little knowledge or experience of the world. To watch her respond to it is to perceive the activation of intelligence and the awakening of wisdom. I can’t imagine anything more thrilling.

  “Ida” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned).   Implied sex, death and dictatorship. Heavy smoking.

An earlier version of the schedule information and listing of credits with this review referred incorrectly to the film’s rating. It is rated PG-13; it is not the case that it is not rated.

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