The movie opens with two men finishing off the burial of an “old goat” in the countryside. Before their departure one lights a cigarette, moves aside a bit of sand to expose a gaping mouth and the soon to be deceased has a last puff before biting the hand that proffered the cigarette.
Seventy-two-year-old Ann Hunter (Dale Dickey) lives with husband Chip in a modest condo. Chip is in rough shape on oxygen. Ann is a rather raunchy lady with wrinkles galore and certainly no spring chicken. She loves her vodka and smokes perhaps a bit too much to the detriment of Chip.
Then early in the morning while Ann and Chip are sleeping their door is bashed down and their “guardian”, Rivera, armed with a court order quickly transports them to a “care facility” named “Christ the King: Eldercare Facility”. For the next month they are locked in a barren room with food shoved in through the door. And the special “palliative care unit”! Ann learns the care facility is full of those under guardianship. Lonely, isolated and with assets which are of course under the control of guardians. Corrupt doctors work hand in hand with “guardians” to control asserts of the elderly. One important politician with his feet in the mud of corruption it seems owns a string of eldercare facilities.
The guardian, in this case Rivera, pressures Ann to disclose an inheritance she allegedly had received. Facing resistance, he orders Chip the invalid confined to a wheelchair beaten. Chip later succumbs to his injuries and the self described “not a nice person” Ann is forced into revenge mode. Her only ally is her granddaughter Emma (Romane Denis) and a shady ex-soldier from her family in rural Texas.
If you like your bad guys mean you’ll have them here and since they are abusers of seniors their meanness is amplified. But they underestimate Ann who is even meaner than they are but as befits good revenge films she has morals on her side while the bad guys only think profits.
There are also traitors, double dealers and psychopaths peppered throughout the film.
Being a typical revenge film moral justice is served perhaps predictably but the journey has its excitement. Can we change the name of the film to “A Country for a Mean Old Goat”.
Dale Dickey is brilliant and without her character and performance the film would be a mere echo of the reality of the senior guardianship business. “Dirty Harry”? “Fistful of Dollars”? A whole new genre of senior revenge?
Oh, by the way “G” stands for Granny!
Directed by Karl R. Hearne.
Plays at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal on 26July2024 with a possible Canadian theatrical release in September 2024.
RKS 2024 Film Rating 91/100.
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