In the sun-baked plains of Arizona at some point in the 1970s, a diner stands attached to a gas station and motel. It’s a nondescript place that could exist in any part of the United States, and it’s very likely anyone travelling this region would have come across such an establishment, but perhaps not have allowed it to register as anything other than a quaint piece of Americana. Yet, this is the location for The Last Stop in Yuma County, an ambitious and daring dark comedy in which Francis Galluppi makes his directorial debut, telling the story of this diner – the only one of its kind for a hundred miles in any direction – and the various people that stop there while making their way through the region. Naturally, there is a lot more to this than it would seem on the surface, which is precisely why this is one of the most exciting debuts of the past year, a tense and dark satire on society and its proclivity towards violence in moments of intense greed. Exploring the depths of the human condition through the lens of a harsh, callous psychological drama that plays like a much bleaker and more terrifying version of The Petrified Forest, another thriller set within an isolated diner that is suddenly the stage of a brutal and violent conflict between a group of drifters trying to find their way out of this desolate landscape. An incredible assemblage of talents emerges throughout this film, which proves to be a terrific debut for Galluppi, who immediately establishes himself as someone worth watching – his directorial instincts are clearly attuned to something much deeper and more profound, and his approach to telling this story hints at the makings of someone with a lot of potential to leave an indelible impression on cinema, if this film is any indication.

Simplicity has always been the best approach when it comes to crafting a memorable crime film, and it’s certainly something that applies throughout The Last Stop in Yuma County, which does not need to resort to excess to make an impression. It is profoundly theatrical in the best possible sense: it limits its setting to a single location for the most part, and seamlessly weaves in new characters, constructing the core cast through steadily introducing them as they become relevant to the story (rather than spending too much time at the start with unnecessary exposition), like a well-crafted stage play that has a firm command on how it tells its story. There isn’t much need for this film to do anything out of the ordinary since following a very simple premise is more than enough to make it wickedly entertaining and genuinely very profound in ways that are sometimes difficult to predict, and which can come as quite a surprise to those not expecting such a nuanced examination of the morality (or lack thereof) in contemporary culture. Constructed as a pastiche of those hard-boiled 1970s crime thrillers produced under the banner of the burgeoning New Hollywood movement, where ambitious filmmakers took advantage of a steadily growing sense of acceptance for violence and cynicism, The Last Stop in Yuma County is a deeply unsettling exploration of greed, as told through the perspective of a group of characters examining their understanding of the morality of greed, and how each one of them is intent on achieving a very particular goal, even if it means sacrificing whatever final vestiges of humanity they have left in them, which is an exceptionally unique starting point for a daring and provocative work of fiction.

Those expecting a simple, by-the-numbers crime thriller will be delighted to find that The Last Stop in Yuma County is much more layered than these initial perceptions may suggest. What we soon discover is that what the director is doing is riffing off several different genres, and the films that defined them. This serves a dual purpose – it shows that the director was aware of the existing works that influenced this genre of filmmaking, as well as allowing him to extract the most intriguing aspects of those films, which would be the fact that they are often driven by their mood more than the narrative, particularly those daring crime dramas produced during the period to which Gallupi is paying tribute. The film starts as a mildly amusing dark comedy, filled with eccentric characters and a heightened sense of absurdity – everyone exists on the same level of being off-the-wall, slightly archetypal characters that serve a very distinct purpose as players in this theatrical approach to the crime genre. Then suddenly, the tone shifts and becomes extremely bleak – there is a nihilism lingering beneath The Last Stop in Yuma County that occurs so rapidly, but yet feels extremely logical and a natural progression for a story that was initially not heading in any discernible direction until the change of pace, where everything falls into place and we begin to understand what the film was aiming to achieve. This is not a project in which the story was particularly important, outside of existing for the sake of giving these characters something to do. Instead, The Last Stop in Yuma County is an atmospheric drama that plays on our emotions, lulling us into a false sense of security through its promise of an eccentric, off-the-wall dark comedy, not a bleak nihilistic drama that presents us with the most hideous and uncomfortable depiction of pure greed we have seen in quite some time. Drawing on many masters of the genre in terms of both style and substance, the director crafts quite an effective chamber drama that is somehow simultaneously hilarious and unsettling, the two working in tandem to get this very strong message across.

The Last Stop in Yuma County is a film that is proud of its independence, being produced without the assistance of a big studio, but rather on the resourcefulness of a smaller group of producers that come together to help bring this peculiar story to life. As a result, it’s not a film that can afford many notable names, but instead (and perhaps for the better) employs a cast mostly composed of character actors, which proves to be a great step towards the authenticity that underlines the film. Jim  Cummings is perhaps the most notable in the cast, and hence he occupies the leading role – while he is not as well-known as he possibly ought to be, he has become a patron saint of young, ambitious filmmakers trying to make it in a hostile and over-saturated industry, proving that passion can be enough, at least at the start. He’s a wonderful actor, and while The Last Stop in Yuma County is entirely credited to Gallupi, it’s difficult not to see Cummings’ influence, with the strange tone and tendency towards hinting at the darker side of humanity being his trademarks. He’s terrific in this film, existing at his most uncanny and unsettling. He’s joined by an ensemble that includes Jocelin Donahue, Sierra McCormick and Nicholas Logan, as well as industry veterans such as Gene Jones, Robin Givens and Richard Brake in other notable supporting parts, bringing their decades of experience to this rambunctious and daring debut. This film is primarily a mood piece, so the actors needed to temper their performances to guide the narrative rather than entirely define it, while still finding the nuance in each one of these roles, so the entire ensemble deserves credit for how they effortlessly managed to evoke a very specific tone throughout this film, helping elevate it beyond a simple by-the-numbers crime thriller.

The best description for The Last Stop in Yuma County would be if Sam Peckinpah had adapted a Cormac McCarthy novel, which may not seem like too much of a stretch, but it is one that perfectly encapsulates the exact tone and style that this film was hoping to achieve, which it does mostly quite successfully. This is a film that is quietly discovered more than boldly announced, which seems to be the most appropriate way for viewers to encounter this story since its gritty, gnarly tone and harsh, harrowing story are far more captivating than the more sanitized, logical and over-produced version it could have been with more visibility. Independent cinema has always been the home for these subversive, strange stories, and this film is one of the many examples of how these principles can be put to good use. The narrative is beautifully off-kilter and captures a very rare balance between comedy and drama – the former is outrageously funny, the latter deeply bleak and unsettling, and yet they find ways to interweave and become truly effective. It’s an incredibly layered film in which violence is used as a narrative tool, and the underlying philosophical concepts begin to instil a sense of genuine paranoia in the viewer. Strange and daring, and also profoundly captivating in a unique way, The Last Stop in Yuma County is one of the year’s best films, a well-constructed debut that is ambitious enough to take risks without any fear, and which proves to be a far more engaging affair than we would have expected based on a cursory glance, especially since all the best aspects of this film are carefully concealed, patiently waiting to be discovered by whatever prospective viewer is willing to leap into this nightmarish, bleak version of our world, a disconcerting but oddly intriguing endeavour.