“Tollbooth.” / “The Last Stop in Yuma County.” / “The Dry” Part 1 and Part 2.

“Tollbooth” (2021, Amazon Prime) Welsh black comedy crime film. Plot: In Pembrokeshire, a man working solo shifts in the quietest toll booth in Wales hides from a criminal past where nobody would ever look. As his past actions catch up with him and his peace is shattered, he enlists the help of local ne’er-do-wells and oddballs.

       There's a female Asian Elvis impersonator, with a mumbling aide whose only comprehensible word is “Whoa!” And rampaging triplets who declare themselves jihadists with Welsh accents. They'd anything from their hold-up victims, including their lunch sandwich.

       This little movie is funny and can be sad, too. Depends on your mood at the time of viewing. 🎥💻📽

“The Last Stop in Yuma County” (2023, Amazon Prime) neo-Western crime thriller film written and directed by Francis Galluppi in his feature directorial debut. 

       At a remote desert location in Yuma County, Arizona, in the 1970s, a traveling knife salesman stops at a filling station. Vernon, the station and motel attendant, informs him that the station's pumps are dry, and there are no other filling stations for over 100 miles (160 km), but that a refueling truck is expected to arrive soon. Then here comes other people and things get really messy.

       For what it is, this $1 million budgeted indie is entertaining. No named or familiar actors or actresses (except maybe perennial bad dude Richard Brake), no matter. The ending song “Let's Live For Today” by The Grass Roots is the moral center of this crazy shenanigan. 🎥💻📽

“The Dry” (2020, Sundance Now) and “Force of Nature: The Dry 2” (2024, Hulu). Australian mystery drama thriller, based on the 2016 and 2017 books by Jane Harper. 

       Part 1: Federal agent Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) returns to his home town of Kiewarra in Victoria to attend the funeral of a childhood friend, who has allegedly killed his wife and their son before taking his own life.

       Depending on the role handed to him although I saw only a few of his movies, Mr Bana is okay, I guess. He was fine in 2004's “Troy” and 2005's”Munich,” directed by Steven Spielberg, and 2018 TV series “Dirty John.” 

       Yet he can also be boring with two or three facial expressions and dry as in “The Dry.” Dry as the landscape of Australia, the film has no dramatic excitement or plot intrigue at all, yet I finished it eventually, a few minutes each night for a week. 

       Part 2: Federal police detectives Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) and Carmen Cooper investigate money laundering facilitated by Daniel Bailey at his firm, Bailey Tennants Finances. 

       Although Eric is joined by awesome performers Anna Torv, Jacqueline McKenzie, and Robin McLeavy, “Force…” stays uninteresting to me. Too many women characters bunched in several scenes. I lost focus. I clicked over and out after about 20 minutes. 🎥💻📽