Review: 'Rushlights', Starring Josh Henderson and Haley Webb

Enter into Rushlights completely cold and you might be thrown by the opening, which resembles a cheesy "meet cute" by way of the CW. Billy (Dallas star Josh Henderson) is tall dark stranger awkwardly flirting with Sarah (Haley Webb), the waitress at his favorite dive. They've clearly been playing this little game for weeks, until he finally works up the nerve to ask her out. The wholesome facade is thrown out the window courtesy of some steamy bedroom action, leading to what is a down 'n dirty southern crime flick with one con too many.

Rather than following up their night of lust by going out for a pancake breakfast, Billy and Sarah instead embark on a ridiculously complicated scheme to take the place of her dead roommate, who had just inherited a fortune from a wealthy uncle. A recovering drug addict with obvious decision-making problems, Sarah is a dead ringer for her deceased pal, and is more than willing to go along with the plan, mostly spear-headed by the suddenly unscrupulous Billy. Their hopes of pulling the plan off without a hitch are complicated by the estate's prominence in a small Texas town where everybody knows everybody. A nosy, all-too-helpful lawyer (Aidan Quinn) seems is a constant presence, and the local sheriff (Beau Bridges) doesn't trust anyone from out of town, much less a couple of kids who just showed up out of nowhere.

Writer/director Antoni Stutz is clearly going for a southern film noir tone, the pulpy B-movie stylings landing somewhere between Wild Things and Palmetto. Every character has an agenda, or at least the idea of an agenda, the violence is sudden and brutal, and no plot twist goes unexplored. Unfortunately there are so many swerves in logic that it overwhelms any chance to figure out who these characters are. Henderson lacks the presence of a leading man, but the film is served well by Webb, who makes for a believable recovering addict grasping at a dangerous lifeline. Bridges and Quinn provide a veteran balance, and are effective in largely underdeveloped roles.