Review of Rush

Attempting to take down a suspected drug kingpin, police detectives Jimmy Raynor (Jason Patric) and Kristen Cates (Jennifer Jason Leigh) go undercover in the small Texas town of Katterly. Their infiltration into the drug world results in both of them coming under the influence of heroin and an assorted cornucopia of pills that threaten their very existence. It's a gritty film and one that highlights the sordid underworld of the drug trade that exists pretty much in plain sight if one goes looking for it. The story could have been made more menacing if it utilized Gregg Allman in a more treacherous light. He portrays saloon owner Will Gaines, who meticulously avoids any connection to the dealers and users who descend on his Driller's Club, and ultimately faces arrest due to planted evidence that Raynor and Cates resort to upon the orders of their Chief Nettle (Tony Frank). Quite frankly, Nettle came across even sleazier than Gaines to me because of his paranoid agenda. The entire case falls apart when Cates, on a courtroom stand to testify, decides it's not worth it to lie about their involvement in Gaines' arrest, this after their principal informant (Max Perlich) commits suicide, and Raynor falls victim to a gunshot wound in what I thought was a somewhat awkward scene that relies on the viewer's conjecture as to what really happened. And so it is with the final scene as well, in which Gaines leaves the court a free bird (with due recognition to Lynyrd Skynyrd), and receives a sentence in absentia from an unknown assailant, although one's hunch about who did it would be a fair guess.