Directed by Randall Emmett, Midnight in the Switchgrass is an American crime thriller starring Megan Fox, Emile Hirsch, and Bruce Willis. The film is based on the true story of the Truck Stop Killer.
FBI agents Rebecca Lombardi (Megan Fox) and Karl Halter (Bruce Willis) are on the case to bust a sex trafficker, but soon discover that their investigation is linked to a serial killer. The two join forces with Law Enforcement agent Byron Crawford (Emile Hirsch) who has been trying to catch the serial killer without any luck. But when one of the FBI agents is abducted by the serial killer, Byron finds himself in a race against time to catch the killer and save the FBI agent from a certain death.
There is very little to get excited about in this film. The premise alone is interesting but the film itself is very slow paced that it struggles to hold your attention for the film’s entire duration. The dialogue is dull and doesn’t come across as natural, and the editing is a catastrophe. One scene that comes to mind is when Megan Fox‘s character Rebecca Lombardi engages in a physical encounter with a potential criminal, but the fight looks lazy, obvious that it wasn’t choreographed by someone that knew what they were doing. Sadly, the scene is also edited that it looks obvious that it painful to watch.
Megan Fox tries her best to carry the film, but she doesn’t have a lot of good material to work with and delivers a one-dimensional performance. Bruce Willis also adds next to nothing to the film. In fact, he is barely featured in it at all and when he is, he mumbles through his lines and his character is as insignificant as his acting performance. The only actor that I felt put in a noteworthy performance is Emile Hirsch as Byron Crawford because he makes you believe that his character seems to be genuinely invested in finding the serial killer, while the other characters come across as if they are just working a job and couldn’t care less.
Midnight in the Switchgrass is a generic and predictable true crime thriller that offers no surprises. It unfortunately takes an interesting story and leaves you not caring about its characters or its outcome.
Midnight in the Switchgrass is out now on DVD and Video on Demand in Australia. The film can be watched on iTunes, Telstra TV Box Office, Google Play, YouTube store, Fetch TV.
