The Badge

Late at night a woman runs in front of a fast-moving truck on a rural Louisiana road. The trucker runs his truck off the road, the woman lays in a ditch, her death the result of a bullet, not the truck. Billy Bob Thornton plays Darl, the sheriff in LaSalle Parish where the accident takes place. After he gives out the shoes from the jack-knifed truck, he heads back to the morgue where, in one breath, he finds out the dead person was transsexual and he closes the case. All that changes when Scarlet (Patricia Arquette) arrives on the scene. The dead woman was Mona, who was her husband. Scarlet is determined to find her lover's murderer, even if it's on her own. But she finds an unexpected ally in Darl when highly corrupt politicians scheme to cost Darl his re-election. Darl must confront his own homophobia as well as evil in this gripping mystery.

This isn't Darl's first brush with his own anti-gay bias. He has a gay brother who he ran out of LaSalle Parish as a way to win his first election. The brother now owns a porn shop in New Orleans with his lover. There are a few scenes in the porn shop, as well as a few in a gay/drag club that queer up this mystery. With gay content, first-class acting from Arquette and Thornton, a really good look to the film and a terrific mystery, this one's a winner.

Scott Cranin