Writer-director Shane Atkinson's "LaRoy, Texas" is a deliciously nasty film in the style of early-John Dahl (especially his "Red Rock West"), with the grim humor of the Coen Brothers thrown in. This is the kind of southern pulp noir that grabs its audience by the hair and forces them down in the muck.

John Magaro is Ray is the definition of a pushover and a classic noir schlub; his older brother, Junior (Matthew Del Negro), treats him like his inferior even though the two supposedly own equal shares in the hardware business they inherited from their parents. Ray also learns that his wife, Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson), is having an affair.

Poor Sham. In 1973, the magnificent chocolate stallion ran the […]