And once they do, Let Me Make You a Martyr reaches a whole new unnerving level of distress. It takes a little while for the family dynamic to fully rear its ugly head вЂ“ for the pieces to come together.

Their adoptive father is Larry Glass, a local crime boss who runs his operation out of the back of a roller rink and has no reservations about pimping out his own family for a quick buck. HeвЂ™s returned to his cheerless town in Oklahoma (where the film was shot on location) to wrap up some unfinished business and to come to the aid of his adopted sister, Junebug. Like the film itself, lead character Drew Glass seems to exist on another plane. TheyвЂ™re interested in raising questions, not a body count, making the film a curative for the type of slick, trigger-happy crime thrillers so prevalent today.

It may take a couple more times around before I feel like IвЂ™ve fully got a grasp on its layers and subtext, but hell, who wants easy answers anyway? Certainly not the filmmakers, who have crafted a dense and sullen tale of revenge, religion, and morality seeped in the swamp. I saw Corey Asraf and John SwabвЂ™s debut film Let Me Make You a Martyr a few days ago and like a thick piece of southern-fried gristle, IвЂ™m gonna be digesting it for a while.

Let me make you a martyr