Oren Shai’s feature directorial debut is a pulpy neo-noir with echoes of classic Westerns, starting with the film’s Arizona desert setting. It’s there that femme fatale Laine (Jocelin Donahue) has fled, taking refuge at a place called The Frontier, run by world-weary Luanne (a terrific Kelly Lynch). But Laine soon learns that the seemingly quiet motel is a hideout for thieves who’ve just stolen $2 million - and devises her own plan to take it from them. Shooting on Super 16mm, cinematographer Jay Keitel gives a shadowy, textured and wonderfully lush look to this tale of desperation and double-crosses.

Wanna watch thugs crush helpless station wagons with a monster truck? Wanna see Patrick Swayze tear out a guy’s throat with his bare hands? This is your movie! Swayze stars as a top-notch bouncer (or “cooler”) brought in to Jasper, Missouri, to tame the Double Deuce club; complicating his work is local hood Ben Gazzara. Kelly Lynch and Sam Elliott costar in this action-packed guilty pleasure.

Devilishly charming Matt Dillon is the head honcho of a quartet of ne’er-do-well addicts (the superb Kelly Lynch, James LeGros and Heather Graham round out the foursome) who support their habits by robbing drugstores in the mid-1970s Northwest. Director Gus Van Sant expertly shifts his matter-of-fact tone from humorous to gut-wrenching, proving a potent force to be reckoned with in his first major film. The picture that made critics stand up and really take notice of Matt Dillon’s multi-faceted talent. With James Remar as Dillon’s cop nemesis and William Burroughs as a junkie ex-priest.