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In the Electric Mist (2009) More at IMDbPro »

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36 comments in total

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33 out of 37 people found the following comment useful :-
Aweome Adaptation, 15 March 2009

Author: dfgrayb from Illinois

Why this movie went straight to DVD is beyond me. The mood is pure southern Gothic, the acting is terrific, and the story is complicated and sad.

The performances were dead on. TLJ hits Dave Robicheaux on the button. But the best is Mary Steenburgen as Bootsie. She really nails this part.

The story is about a Cajun cop who is haunted by his own demons, and by the demons he faces in his work as an Iberia Parish Deputy. The characters he meets in trying to solve the murders are so true to life that you wonder if the people playing the parts were really actors. John Goodman is great, as usual, as is Ned Beatty.

While a good old fashion murder mystery awaits you, what is more important, as it is in the novels by James Lee Burke, is the story of Robicheaux. He is a man who has a strong moral code, yet is violent, alcoholic, and continually puts his family in danger. The complexity of his character is difficult to portray, but TLJ does it better than anyone else could.

It is a fine, beautiful movie. Now if only another movie could be made that also includes Clete Purcell, one of the best sidekicks ever written in a mystery novel series.

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23 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Tommy Lee nails the part, 8 March 2009

Author: warren-ripley from United States

Tommy Lee Jones has either read Burke's books or he is really that good. Unlike Alec Baldwin's Robicheaux in "Heaven's Prisoners" Jones has the complex nature of Robicheaux's personality down. Jones can deliver on the character's contrasting moods -- the sensitivity of his care for others versus the fire of his smoldering anger. Good flick. No stupid CGI tricks, no political correctness, just a good old fashioned crime mystery with a very riveting main character. There are some unresolved elements regarding the Goodman and Beatty parts but the dogged pursuit of the criminal element by Jones is worth the price of admission. I've read all of Burke's books and this is as close as anyone is going to get to myriad aspects of Dave Robicheaux's tortured soul. Burke fans disappointed by "Heaven's Prisoners" should see this one.

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55 out of 91 people found the following comment useful :-
Fantastic adaptation of the James Lee Burke, Dave Robicheaux Series!, 4 January 2009

Author: jaredlallatin from United States

I have been a long time fan of the writing of James Lee Burke. When they made Heaven's Prisoners into a movie I was disappointed with the finished product. So was everyone else and they didn't make any more of his books into films. I was glad to see that now, years later, they have decided to make another film. The casting is excellent and the story telling is true to the book. Tommy Lee Jones plays the main character about as well as I could imagine anyone playing Dave. I hope the movie is received with good reviews because I would love to see more of the series made into films. I highly recommend this excellent film to anyone. I think that James Lee Burke fans would be pleased, as well as people unfamiliar with the books. See this movie!!! It does not disappoint. The only thing I wish they had done, was make a movie out of one of the books that has Clete Purcel as a main character. I would love to see Black Cherry Blues made into a movie. I just think it would be hard to cast Clete. Maybe that character is too big for the silver screen.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
That Authentic Cajun Atmosphere, 15 May 2009
Author: Lechuguilla from Dallas, Texas

A no-nonsense cop named "Robicheaux" (pronounced Roba-shaw, and well played by Tommy Lee Jones) is on a case involving the murders of several local prostitutes. At the same time, Robicheaux is haunted by a decades-old killing of a Black man whose remains are found in a swamp by a member of a film crew shooting a movie. So the twin questions are ... who is responsible for the murders of the prostitutes, and is there a link between these murders and the long-ago killing of the Black man?

Set in modern day South Louisiana, near New Orleans, "In The Electric Mist" absolutely drips with authentic Cajun atmosphere. The place names, the rustic look of old frame houses, the backwater bayous with lush vegetation, those wonderful Louisiana accents, the outdoor barbecue at a plantation house ... You feel like you're really there, in that place. It's the best element of the film, by far.

The film's casting and acting are quite good. And the music is terrific. At the end credits the song played is the haunting "La Terre Tremblante", with its mystical-Blues sound and French lyrics. The song is straight out of Cajun country, and it is mesmerizing.

Unfortunately, the film's plot is muddled. Editing is terrible. And the film's ending is very unsatisfying. My understanding is that the film went through some serious post-production issues, the most significant being the deletion of a number of scenes. These deletions may account for plot problems associated with choppy flow and lack of clarity.

Even so, "In The Electric Mist" is still worth watching, not so much for the story or plot as for the evocative Cajun atmosphere and that terrific music.

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Enjoyed it, but missing a few things, 7 March 2009

Author: tommythecat2 from United States

I read the book last summer and was anxious to see the film. If you did not read the book you might find things confusing. Unfortunately they did not expand on the mystical episodes that Elrod and Dave have regarding the confederate soldiers and how Elrod stays with Dave for a time and the really confusing part on how Dave was shot outside the club by the "dead" woman. In all, it followed the book and was very well acted, but it left too many important "book" parts out. Tommy Lee Jones was great and I think he made a terrific Dave, but I'm sorry they didn't show more of Peter Sarsgaard; he's such a terrific actor and in the book his character is as "insightful" regarding the confederate soldiers as Dave. If you read the book before watching the movie, you'll get it. I really enjoyed the movie.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Atmospheric, Moody Drama with Crime as Only Part of Context, 8 March 2009

Author: Nicolas Mascota (critic-fanspot) from United States

Filled with bayou atmosphere, the film follows Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux as he sorts through two cases that tie together past and present, history and future, black and white, rich and poor. The cultural tension that permeates the movie creates the backdrop for a psychological crime drama whose suspense comes primarily from the personal conflict of Robicheaux. The crime action itself serves more to buffet the lead character on his internal journey than to create an action-heavy thrill-ride.

In the Electric Mist is rich in atmosphere, and that is perhaps its strongest point. All aspects of the film-making process come together to drive home the feeling of the Lousiana bayou, from the detailed sets to the slow pace to the contrast between the simmering intensity of the true Louisiana folks with the outlandish extroversion of the outsiders and the locals who have been won over by Hollywood culture. It is a movie best experienced with your full attention.

There is a strong sense of suspense in the film, but it is delivered through tragedy and the search for resolution, not high action. While Tommy Lee Jones delivers the sort of performance one might expect and there are certainly plenty of thriller mainstay elements, this is not an action piece, an in intrigue, or a intricate mystery. If you cannot get invested in the tension of a complicated shades-of-grey lead character and his search for answers to questions that may not e fully expressed, the suspense will likely escape you and you will be left with a slow movie with an unsurprising plot. And if you cannot get absorbed into the play of contrasts and dialectics within the fabric of the rural Louisiana cultural fabric, you probably find the message trite, the ending too neat, and some of the performances (e.g., John Goodman as Baby Feet Balboni) as over-the-top and distracting. But if you can allow yourself to experience the film through Jones' Robicheaux, you will find yourself sharing his internal conflict, delighting in bright spots of energy like Alana Locke's Alafair, and clinging to a misty hope for resolution.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Good film, 13 March 2009

Author: artzau from Sacramento, CA

I can count on my fingers with half my hand cut away the number of times I've ever been disappointed by Tommy Lee Jones's performance in a film. This film here is no exception. John Goodman is another who always delivers a solid performance and they both give us a great show. The writing of the script is solid and the setting of the film is provoking. The entire film works well with support from veteran character actors like Ned Beatty, craggy faced James Gammon and ex-drummer Levon Helm, as well as younger performers like Mary Steenburgen, Justina Machado,Kelly Macdonald and the up and coming Peter Sargaard.

One might argue that this kind of a role is almost type casting for Tommy Lee Jones but I would argue otherwise. An actor works with what he has and TLJ has always been able to use his face to great advantage from a stone-cold glare to a sheepish grin. The story is told from his character's point of view, in this case, a person with an uncompromising sense of justice-- not a paragon of virtue, by any means, but one who refuses to sacrifice his principles of right and wrong, i.e., the hero with a decidedly human face. The tension does not let up as the hunt draws closer and closer to the conclusion. While I think the little coda at the end was unneeded, it still works to make a good story.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
I'm gonna skate and your gonna help me!, 7 January 2009

Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

***SPOILERS*** After some ten years after he first appeared on the screen back in 1996 in "Heaven's Prisoner" recovering alcoholic lawman Officer Dave Robicheaux, Tommy Lee Jones, gets on an unsolved murder case that he himself witnessed back in 1965 when he was just 17 years old.

In was back in the summer of 1965 that escaped black fugitive Dewitt Prejean, Chukwuma Onwuchekw, was gunned down in the Atchafalaya swamp by two perusing correction officers. Prejean's body was found some 43 years later when a motion picture company was making a Civil War film in and around the swamp. The person who found Prejean's remains was the star of the film actor Elrod Sykes, Peter Sarsgaard, who later had the misfortune of being stopped, while driving drunk, by Officer Robicheaux! In trying to talk Officer Robicheaux in not giving him a ticket Sykes, who was also driving with a suspended license, told him about what he found in the swamp and a light blob lit up in the lawman's head! Robicheaux witnessed Prejean's murder!

The film "The Electric Mist" has two stories interconnecting with each other in it. That includes the Pregean murder back in 1965 and a number of local hooker killings some 40 years later in the same general area; The Iberian Perish deep in the Louisiana Bayous. What connects these two crimes is that the person, or persons, responsible for them have something to do with the Civil War movie that's being made there in the almost impassable Atchafalaya Swamp!

The film leaves a lot of things up in the air in what's, and who's, behind the serial murders and even when it's over we never really know who the killer is. Officer Robicheaux's brutal and illegal methods in tracking down the elusive killer makes him anything but likable to the audience. The killer himself is always a step ahead of Robicheaux and even implicates the lawman as well as his FBI partner Agent Rosie Gomez,Justina Machado,in having them do his dirty work for him. We also have Officer Robicheaux get help in solving the hooker killings from an unexpected source! Civil War Confederate General John Bell Hood, Levon Holm. It was when Robicheaux got smashed by someone in a local bar slipping him a Mickey Finn, in his glass of Doctor Pepper, that he was able to conjure up the long dead general who gave him the clues to solve the murders.

The reformed and elderly, he's almost 60 years old in the movie, alcoholic lawman Robicheaux was a bit unbelievable in his being able to take on and beat silly people twice as big and half his age in the film. Even so Robicheaux's brutal tactics didn't bring in any results in having a number of key witness to the hooker murders end up dead because of them. As for the 43 year old mystery of who murdered Dewitt Prejean the film, including Robicheaux and those who murdered him, seemed to have almost completely forgot about it!

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13 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than it's being rated, 15 March 2009

Author: maurice_84 from United States

First, there's the great French director, Tavernier, who made many films Americans missed. But at least most remember "'Round Midnight,'" an amazingly done jazz film with the late Dexter Gordon. Then there are the great actors, from Tommy Lee (who did indeed "nail" Robicheaux), but also Ned Beatty, Mary Steenburgen (who made the ordinary character of Bootsie bearable), the other great director John Sayles (as a director,of course) and countless lesser known character actors. The production values are superb. I've read most of Burke's novels and the sets of Dave's house, the dives he visits, the bayou, all of it are exactly as I'd imagined. The writing is good and I don't get why people think the story is confusing. But there is one major flaw (for me) that rankles. Why cast musicians (Levon Helm, Buddy Guy) in roles that really need strong acting? Helm was a great drummer for The Band, but I've never seen him act with much conviction. And the character of the dead Confederate general requires strength. Hal Holbrook would have been perfect. Then there's Buddy Guy, a great Chicago blues man, but he's no actor. He seemed almost to be reading most of his lines from off camera in one scene.

You cannot put strong actors in the same scenes with weak ones. But good actors together can make a scene--witness the last confrontation between Tommy Lee's Robicheaux and Ned Beatty's Lemoyne.

So, solid direction, much strong acting, faithful to the book, great sets and setting, all brought lower by some bad casting. Still, I think this one deserves more respect, especially compared to many of this year's "Oscar worthy" films.

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18 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
C'est huh?, 25 December 2008
Author: popcorn please from Taiwan

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I liked watching the movie, but i didn't like the movie. Why? I really enjoyed the bayou scenery, the cinematographic landscapes, a different cinematic tempo, and of course Tommy Lee. All were pleasantries in a world of crap films that abound. BUT, and here is the kicker... what just happened in the last 2 hours? At every turn the story is dished out like patchy comic book with no flow to the plot. Though i loved the tempo of the shots there was no meat on these bones... and other than tommy lee and the daughter, no other characters (except the cop with the mosquito/bat joke) left anything for us to hold on to or want to see more of. Plot wise i felt tossed from one awkward portrayal of some event or person to the next, each scene consistently lacking something important. Just as some French flicks can end, leaving you hanging like an abrupt slice of life does, this film felt like that the whole way through but not at the end! In some ways it flowed like Jules and Jim, and i can't put my finger on why i draw this distant similarity. But in the Electric Mist, the question, "what's the point?" was a recurring theme for me in the details and dialogs. Even though i felt kidnapped and tossed in the back of a van for a lot the film, being lost just really didn't matter, because we are spoon fed the step-by-step details of the choppy simple plot which left me feeling like all the details and the plot superfluously and inanely added up to very little by the end. You see, you ultimately get to the end, and i got there with a lingering "huh?". Again, don't watch this for the plot or the attempt at mystery, there is neither. Don't expect the thriller or action it tries to be, or even to be engaged by any deep social commentary, it fell short on all these too. Watch it to get out of the rut and repetition of Hollywood, and into some beautiful bayou through some French eyes with the ever enjoyable Tommy Lee as captivating guide who pulls off some good small town tough sheriff moments.

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