Rating: B-
Dir: David Pomes.
Star: Anson Mount, Xander Berkeley, Ryan Donowho, Polly Cole.
a.k.a. Cook County
A genius bit of provocative title changing here by the distributor. I’d likely have scrolled right past Cook County on Tubi. But Pure White Bitch? Definitely got my attention. The item in question is crystal meth, being cooked up in a remote farmhouse by Bump (Mount). Though his dreams of wealth are perpetually derailed by his fondness for getting high on his own supply. After a two and a half year absence, his brother Sonny (Berkeley) returns, supposedly now clean and sober, to an awkward reunion with son Abe (Donowho). Abe has been living with Bump, but has serious qualms, in particular about Bump’s skills as a single parent to his six-year-old daughter, Deandra, Mom having OD’d.
Despite Sonny’s new healthy lifestyle and consequent qualms, he still assists Bump in cooking up batches of the drug, while trying to repair his relationship with Abe. But Bump’s pharmaceutical induced paranoia and madness is growing, causing him to make an increasing number of poor decisions. Almost from the start, it’s clear this is not going to end well – and that’s discounting Sonny’s little secret, perhaps tied to his extended absence. This certainly doesn’t soft-pedal the dangers of meth use, depicted particularly well by Bump’s girlfriend Lucy (Cole), whose rambling monologues and disjointed conversations with Bump are spot on the mark. It’s not quite Trainspotting, in that you never get a particular explanation of the drug’s appeal. However, it still sucked me in, in a road-accident way.
In addition to the title, I was intrigued by the idea of Berkeley playing poor white trash. I know him best as District Director George Mason from 24, last seen heroically flying a nuclear bomb into the mountains. Then there’s Mount, considerably hairier than his current role as Captain Pike in Star Trek. Watching them cooking up meth and acting skeevy did not compute. Which was half the charm. Though the scene involving Bump, Deandra and an associate who has money Bump desperately needs… Yeah, any remaining empathy over a bad life and poor choices, left on roller-skates. It separates this from its urban (and urbane) cousin. Breaking Bad, which started a couple of months before this had its premiere.
There, Walter White remained at least somewhat sympathetic throughout. Here, it feels like the more we know about Bump, the more repellent he becomes. Sonny and, in particular, Abe are slightly different. Sonny is driven to do the “right” thing, albeit mostly by self-interest, while Abe wants out – as much for Deandra as himself – and gets a brief taste of life outside, before inevitably being pulled back in. It’s an ugly look at an ugly way of life in… wherever this is. Might be East Texas. Might be West Virginia. Regardless, it’s a place I’d probably rather not know any more about. I feel like I may have contracted a case of the “meth mites” simply by watching this. /scratches self vigorously.