Film Review: John Travolta digs into an action romp in Mob Land

John Travolta stars in Mob Land.

• Mob Land
• ★★★★☆
• Cinema release

Just don’t call it a comeback. 

John Travolta reinvents himself once again in Mob Land (15A), playing a good ol’ boy sheriff, Chief Bodie, whose slow drawl and laidback style masks a steely resolve when it comes to keeping the peace. 

But when his nephew Shelby (Jake Arzola) and Shelby’s brother-in-law Trey (Kevin Dillon) knock over a pill-peddling operation in Bodie’s sleepy town, their rash act draws the wrath of the New Orleans-based Mob. 

And when Clayton Minor (Stephen Dorff) arrives in town to recover the Mob’s money and dole out retribution, all hell breaks loose.

Written by Nicholas Maggio and Rob Healy, with Maggio directing, Mob Land is a bleak and brutal thriller set in an American heartland that is suffering death by a thousand cuts, with illegal opioids providing the only option for temporary relief.

It’s a backdrop not unlike that of David McKenzie’s Hell or High Water (2016), in which desperate straits make outlaws of law-abiding men, and Jake Arzola is an achingly vulnerable Shelby, the father of a young family who finds himself with no other choice but to take what he has no hope of earning.

Stephen Dorff and John Travolta are terrific too, playing Shelby’s devil and guardian angel, respectively, with both veterans visibly revelling in a meaty script that provides the thrills and spills we expect from an action thriller, but also ducks in beneath the flying bullets to explore the human cost of trying to live with dignity in a world where life is as cheap as the price of the next pill.