For decades, cinema has had a peculiar relationship with the film noir genre. At one point, it was arguably one of the most popular genres in Hollywood, but much like the western and musical, it faded away during that ambiguous period towards the end of the Golden Age, and was revived in the early 1970s with the entry of New Hollywood, albeit in a vastly different form, usually being labelled as neo-noir for the most part. Yet, we’ve seen some earnest attempts to make films that act as throwbacks to the classical hardboiled crime thrillers of the 1940s, which has proven to be quite a challenging endeavour, since there is something very elusive about those films that made them work. However, this doesn’t mean it is impossible, as we’ve seen some very inspired works over the years – and one of the most surprising comes in the form of Lake George, in which director Jeffrey Reiner constructs a very traditional blend of crime and dark comedy that feels like an earnest attempt to revisit the films of yesteryear without being too blatant in its reverence, which is usually the aspect that tends to derail even the most dedicated attempts at homage. The film follows a former hitman who, after his most recent stay in prison, decides that he is going to permanently step away from a life of crime. However, a former employer coerces him into one final assignment: to eliminate his lover, who he believes has become too big for her britches, and who poses too much of a threat to the feared crime lord. What our protagonist doesn’t realise is that his target is not the demure, timid mistress he imagined, but rather a feisty rebel who is as quick on the trigger as she is with a witty retort, which makes his attempts to kill her almost impossible. Realising that they are better off working together rather than in opposition, the pair decide to team up to go against their shared nemesis, who they believe they can easily conquer with the right amount of planning and effort, leading to a series of delightful misadventures for the pair. A wonderfully eccentric but also genuinely well-crafted crime comedy, Lake George is a delightful surprise, a small but substantial film with an abundance of soul, something that we don’t find emerging in the genre in recent years, and which is very welcome in this instance.

Reiner is not a particularly well-known name to those who aren’t familiar with his body of work, which is why it is very easy to view Lake George as a lesser offering based on the fact that it doesn’t have a director with a clearly discernible style at the helm. However, it is within this very quality that we find many of the film’s greatest strengths emerging, based on his very unique journey within the industry. Having worked in Hollywood for well over three decades now, Reiner has made his career as a journeyman filmmaker who is hired to helm projects that don’t need an auteurist touch, but rather consistency, and his ability to adapt to any tone or style is an immense gift that not many people seem to find valuable in contemporary directors. Lake George is designed to be a hardboiled crime thriller that serves as a throwback to several different eras in the broader genre’s history, and therefore needed someone who could bring all these elements together in a manner that is bespoke and meaningful above everything else, which is precisely the case with this film. Simplicity is the key here – the film consists of a quartet of key characters (and a few that exist in the periphery as plot devices), a clear narrative structure featuring a few obvious arcs, and a series of details that strengthen the story without complicating it, which all accumulate into a very traditional but inventive work that is defined by its straightforward approach above anything else, and which eventually begins to benefit the majority of its most ambitious ideas, as few as far between as they may be. The brilliance of Lake George comes in how it realises the most authentic throwback to the films it wished to honour was not to replicate the style, but rather to keep everything effortlessly simple and direct, which is a terrific rule of thumb for just about any director, especially one seeking to pay tribute to an extinct style of filmmaking. It doesn’t need to be overly ambitious or daring, since its central premise is strong enough to sustain the entire production, which proves to be far more nuanced based on this straightforward approach.

However, certain themes in Lake George make it slightly deeper than we would imagine based on a cursory glance, with most of the more innovative details emerging through the story itself, which proves to have much more thought behind it than initially expected. There is a strong psychological foundation to this film that can easily be overlooked in the midst of the off-the-wall humour and sometimes overt use of violence, but is still very much present in informing much of the lingering themes that define this film. The story centres on two individuals at an existential impasse – they both have dark pasts that involve close connections with the criminal underworld, and despite knowing that they are essentially complicit in a lot of harmful actions, they have managed to mostly blend into the surrounding world, but not without paying the consequences, whether legally or in the form of their lingering guilt that follows them around constantly. Lake George is not a film about reform, but rather one about the internal rehabilitation anyone who carries guilt for the past has to inevitably process in some form or another. Making use of the odd couple scenario, which is subsequently dismantled and turned on its head (with the supposed bloodthirsty hitman proving to be a milquetoast, and his intended target being a salt-of-the-earth rebel who has no issue eliminating anyone in her path), which removes the traditional tropes of the femme fatale misleading a conflicted protagonist, and instead creates something deeply challenging to conventions, even if a lot of this is quite surface-level and has philosophical depths that are difficult to entirely comprehend, which can occasionally give off the illusion of being complex for the sake of it, rather than having anything of value to say. There are many intriguing elements to Lake George, but it does take some time to fully understand everything it wants to say – and the ending doesn’t help, since the film concludes on quite a dour, pessimistic note, which does show that the complexities that simmer throughout the film are not incidental, but also risks giving an otherwise very entertaining film a more ambigious closing that feels slightly unnecessary, especially when a happy ending could have easily been justified in this instance.

Regardless of how much we wax poetic on Lake George and its many complexities, the reason it succeeds in just about every area is because of the actors. Reiner has the good sense to go with two performers who not only are extremely talented, but feel like they were plucked from the depths of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with both Shea Whigham and Carrie Coon being actors who have a very particular timeless quality about them, which has afforded them many opportunities, but yet to be fully expanded on in such an unconventional film that is almost entirely built around their individual strengths as well as their wonderful chemistry when acting together. Whigham in particular stands out – in a career that has lasted nearly thirty years, he has been a consistently welcome presence, with his unique acting style and incredible versatility affording him countless opportunities, but very rarely the chance to lead a film. While a more notable name could have been cast, the role of Don in Lake George benefitted from someone mildly recognisable to the general public, but also not a major star to the point where his presence would have been distracting. Whigham perfectly fits into the role of this former hitman who has developed a conscience, and he evokes the many talented character actors that found their artistic salvation in these offbeat, challenging film noir productions. Coon, on the other hand, has proven to be one of the industy’s most reliable players, having been afforded a range of roles over the past decade that have highlighted the clear fact that she is incapable of giving the same performance twice, being a chameleon of an actor and someone who consistently pushes the boundaries of her craft through every small acting choice she makes, whether its in film, television or on the stage, all of which she has conquered in her own small but substantial way. In this film, she’s front-and-centre as this unconventional protagonist whose resourcefulness and wisecracking nature prove to be more useful than any weapon (although she’s not shy about using those when necessary), and while its not a role that challenges her, she still delivers a tremendous performance that feels exceptionally well-crafted, and much more nuanced than a one-dimensional bundle of neuroses that we may have gotten with a different actor in the role.

Lake George is a very easy film to overlook – it doesn’t jump out at the viewer, and its premise is kept intentionally ambigious as a means to not give away too much of the plot, since a lot of the story depends on the element of surprise in some way or another. The real brilliance of this film comes in the form of the underlying cues, which are exceptionally simple but still profoundly meaningful in their own way, being crafted as a deeply captivating story of two individuals on the run from someone with whom they share a complex history, and who will have no qualms in eliminating them should their plot become apparent. Designed to evoke the callous but entertaining films noir of prior decades, going directly to the source of those classical films that follow a simple structure (rather than taking the easier route and choosing to be more aligned with neo-noir, which is essentially a case of infusing the genre with a more modern meaning), Lake George has quite a unique flair, albeit one that doesn’t always seem to be entirely developed, a likely result of trying to meet criteria that quite simply didn’t need to exist. None of this actually impacts the final product, since this film is unquestionably very entertaining and filled to the brim with a unique energy that is difficult to ignore. Anchored by tremendous performances, a wickedly subversive sense of humour and a seemingly never-ending array of existential ideas, Lake George is a fascinating film that proves to be a much more surprising, well-crafted endeavour than it seems to be on the surface.