Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner steal the right amount of money and screen time.
I wanted to see the modern day “Bonnie & Clyde” crime drama “Carolina Caroline” at this year’s Boulder International Film Festival, because of how much I love Samara Weaving. She’s proven her talents with movies like “Ready or Not,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and “Bill and Ted Face the Music.” I would have seen it after my viewing of “Power Ballad,” but the schedule for both films were cutting it too close and “Carolina Caroline” was playing at a farther venue. Not much flexibility on their end.
But the good news is I was given another chance to see the film, and I liked it for how much I love the genre of young criminals in love, the dangers they place themselves in, and the family drama that provokes their emotions. There have been many other films to tackle on the “Bonnie and Clyde” genre like “Thelma and Louise,” “Queen & Slim,” and “Natural Born Killers,” and “Carolina Caroline” doesn’t overexploit it. It continues to liven up, speak with the right convictions, and have the right young actors displaying their chemistry and honesty.
Weaving plays a Texas girl named Caroline, who falls for a charming conman named Oliver (Kyle Gallner). He specializes in tricking small time store owners into trading bigger bills for his smaller bills (Here’s a a dollar and we’ll call it $10 or $20). She lives with her loving father (Jon Gries), but she wants to travel to South Carolina to find her mother (Kyra Sedgwick), who abandoned them. Although at this point, she would have been off going to Myrtle Beach. I know I would. So, these two lovers travel cross country with him teaching her his money ways.
They even decide to start robbing banks with Caroline wearing a black wig and sunglasses and doing the robbing and Oliver doing the planning and listening to the police radio. But when they get to South Carolina, pathos ensues and their game becomes dangerous. That’s when the movie keeps going into “Bonnie & Clyde” territory. And that’s when we’re at the edge of our seats.
The mother subplot could have been expanded a bit because of how good Sedgwick is at playing a bad mother here, but “Carolina Carolina” still knows how to use the genre, the lovers, and their money game. Weaving continues using an American accent and having a personality as the main heroine who transitions from a young Texas dreamer to a criminal. And Gallner, in his first movie role since “Smile 2,” has the kind of charisma to draw us into his character. In fact, his money game would be worthy of a Steven Soderbergh entry.
You’re guaranteed some police chases, guns, costumes, and murder, but writer Tom Dean and director Adam Rehmeier are both able to handle them with a slick, stylish, and versatile energy. Watching “Carolina Caroline” is like riding with strangers you want to get to know, even with their illegal activities. Because like “Hell or High Water,” these thieves have troubles of their own and they know how to play their money games. And it feels like yesterday I praised that film from 2016.
Like “Tuner,” which I reviewed at the Boulder International Film Festival, we’re able to see a crime story from a less stressful angle and more stylish and consistent manner. The young safecracker in that film has a serious hearing condition with air horns as his greatest threat. The young thieves here don’t need quick total to get their change back. And if I was able to see both movies at the festival, I would have told my cousins: “No Capra material is always required.”
In Select Theaters This Friday