There’s been a glut of action films in the last twenty years or so that wallow in the concept of an unassuming Everyman with an unspecified and vague past who suddenly becomes an unstoppable killing machine when their neighbor/landlady/friend’s daughter/own daughter/dog gets threatened or killed. I’m not opposed to these movies, and in fact I’m genuinely a fan of them when they’re done well, but…it’s a well-worn theme. And it has been for some time. Famously, F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series, part of his wider Secret History Of The World, skewers this idea by making its central character Jack “just a guy from Jersey who knows a few tricks.” No military training, no organized crime background, just sheer grit, guts, and ingenuity. Karl R. Hearne’s The G takes a similar approach to the genre. The G is a film about a woman who ought not to be fucked with simply because she is a woman who ought not to be fucked with. It’s exactly the kind of washed out and gritty neo noir crime whatever film you’ve been waiting for.
The G is the story of Ann, a somewhat gruff woman beloved by her granddaughter Emma (who refers to her glowingly as ‘The G’ for the notes she would leave her as a child). After Ann (played brilliantly by the painfully underrated Dale Dickey) puts her and her husband in a shady nursing home as part of a real estate scam, Ann pulls out all the stops in getting even.
On a superficial level this comes off as just another revenge film. What sets it apart from the pack is how non-stylized and simple this film is. Ann’s background is lightly hinted at, in that her father probably had connections to organized crime, but no one is shaking in their boots at the sound of her name. “The G” is not spoken of in hushed tones in smoky back rooms. A lone henchman is at no point left alive to let his boss know that “The G” is on to them. There’s none of that. Dickey’s Ann is just a woman looking to right a wrong. There’s a refreshing grimness to her character, an utter lack of punchlines and quips that is a breath of fresh air. Instead of delivering a punny catchphrase before dispatching some unlucky red shirt, Ann just…shoots them in the face. The violence is understated but realistic, exactly the way you’d expect it to play out in the real world. Even the way the film looks, with lots of vacant hallways and industrial landscapes, speaks of a stripped down aesthetic that’s greatly welcomed in modern film.
It’s not just the straightforward, no frills nature of the violence in this film that makes it so enjoyable. Dale Dickey is an absolute treasure in this film. She brings a sense of weariness to Ann that is strangely universal; somehow, I found myself relating to a retiree being forced into a shitty nursing home. Her performance is one long prolonged but very genuine sigh. And I mean that in the best way. Dickey has very clearly had enough of this shit and is now making it the antagonist’s problem, and she’s doing so in a way that will make the audience think to themselves ‘oh yeah I totally feel that.’ The rare moments of tenderness in the film we see are between Ann and her granddaughter Emma, and again Dickey gives us a simple but powerful depiction of paternal love that will resonate with the viewer.
The G is a film that could have very easily gone off the rails into the territory of being unwatchable cliché-ridden horseshit or emotional torture porn of how we treat the older people in this country. Instead, we are gifted with a film that is disciplined enough to tell it’s story in a satisfying way that doesn’t rely on stylized violence but rather a simple sense of heart and toughness.
