The retribution that June Squibb exacts on exploiters of senior citizens in her recent surprise hit, “Thelma,” pales in comparison to the hard-hitting revenge that Dale Dickey exacts in “The G.” In this far less cozy tale, the star plays a tough veteran with a hard life who turns out to be the wrong person for organized crime.
Canadian writer-director Karl R. Hearne’s second feature is strongly reminiscent of 1970s cinema in its emphasis on grim character details over suspense mechanics, resulting in a supposed thriller that isn’t very suspenseful. Yet the narrative is informed by the same grim satisfaction that drives the heroine, a woman who isn’t particularly ingratiating but is quite capable of meting out punishment to those who deserve it.
Seventy-two-year-old Ann Hunter (Dickey, playing a woman ten years her senior, referred to as “G” by her granddaughter Emma (Romane Denis)) is less appreciated by others, including her in-laws, who attribute the declining health of frail widower Chip (Greg Ellwand) to her marrying him. In fact, she is no Florence Nightingale, spending her days smoking and drinking while he lies in bed hooked up to an oxygen tank.
Still, none of them are prepared for the sudden financial downturn when they’re evicted from their home and forced into a grim housing project filled with other seniors placed under guardianship by court order. It turns out this is standard procedure for a well-oiled fraud machine that targets vulnerable seniors: corrupt doctors and judges declare them insane so white-collar criminal Rivera (Bruce Ramsay) can liquidate their real estate, savings and other assets. They’re effectively held as prisoners, or worse — early on, we see two of the boss’s thugs bury alive one unfortunate man who outlived his cost-effectiveness.
Ann and Chip don’t seem worth the effort. But Rivera has reason to believe she has a fortune stashed away somewhere, even though she vehemently denies it. In fact, Ann has a troubled past that she prefers not to talk about. It revolves around an estranged family in Texas “with many enemies.” The violence in that world has turned her into someone who, to put it mildly, “will not take any nonsense from anyone.”
When Chip pays a heavy price for her refusal to talk, Ann begins to mobilize her long-unused but considerable resources to exact cruel justice on her persecutors. This includes enlisting the services of a Lone Star State enforcer and building solidarity with a much more passive (but conveniently armed) roommate/prisoner played by Roc Lafortune. Meanwhile, loyal Emma uses the apartment complex’s attractive young gardener (Joe Scarpellino) in her own somewhat reckless efforts to free Granny. These allies, however, may prove unreliable.
Apparently shot in Montreal, the English-language film is deliberately vague about its setting, but its entire look—gloomy colors, drab locations, interiors devoid of decoration, the clean but cheerlessly simple compositions of Vlad Horodinca’s widescreen cinematography—conveys anonymity, the kind of overlooked milieus into which undesirables can “disappear” without anyone noticing.
Sometimes you wish The G were a little less understated and more willing to stoke tension. But there’s an authenticity in its almost dreariness that washes out the pulpier aspects of this story, so it rarely feels like contrived melodrama. And Dickey, who effortlessly dominates a solid cast, has neither time nor patience for cheap thrills. She admits, “I’m not a nice person… but I have other qualities,” and her Ann is immediately convincing as someone who has been on both sides of a gun and learned that it’s better to shoot than be shot at. Even if Hearne’s film ends on a weaker note than it deserves, she infuses it with as much stony force as she can.
