Josie

Year: 2018

Actors: Sophie Turner, Daeg Faerch, Dylan McDermott, Jack Kilmer

Duration: 100 min

In Baymont, which is not in Texas, Hank lives at the Pink Motel where he takes care of a pair of tortoises. He likes to fish, and he parks in front of the local high school and tells kids where they shouldn't be parking and what they shouldn't be doing. No, he doesn't have a child going there and he is not creepy. Guarding the parking area seems to be his job.Several times Hank sees a vision of a mean-looking man in an orange prison jumpsuit.One day a teenage girl named Josie moves into the motel. She was told by Romero, who does landscaping work, that Hank was a big strong man who would help her move in. Josie is very nice but always wears short shorts (except when she is wearing a swimsuit at the motel's pool) and she seems like a rebel. She has long blonde hair. Josie gives three people three different explanations of why she moved there. One version is that her parents are coming later and she is getting settled first, which doesn't make sense because school will soon be out. Another version is that her father is in the military in Germany and her mother moved there with him but she did not want to go. A third version is that her single mother raised her but now she is deceased.Josie is new at the local high school and she is in Ms. Elkins' class. She sits down next to Marcus, who seems interested in her. She likes him too. Ms. Elkins has just assigned a project which is due in three weeks, and everyone will need a partner. Luckily, with Josie in the class there is an even number of students. Josie and Marcus want to be partners, which upsets Marcus' friend Gator, who looks like Axl Rose and wanted to partner with Marcus on the project.Marcus arrives at the motel to work with Josie and is dismayed to learn that jerk who patrols the parking area is there too. During the night, Hank's truck is vandalized but it's not certain Marcus did it. Marcus tells Josie there is something strange about Hank, because no one knows his past, but there are people that believe he committed terrible crimes.Gordie and Martha live at the motel. It's not clear whether they run the place. Martha is nice to everyone but when alone with Gordie she seems to want to meddle in everyone's business. Gordie, a "make America great" type, has been kind of a jerk, calling Hank "Hanky-Panky". And while he is just joking, Gordie wants to see proof Romero is in the country legally, but Romero was born in El Paso, or so he says.Martha invites Josie to the Memorial Day cookout, and Josie invites Hank, who is sort of antisocial and has never seemed interested in such events. Josie builds a race course for Hank's tortoises, so part of the entertainment is a tortoise race. Francine is the winner. Gordie and Hank become better friends. Josie leaves afterward to party with her school friends and of course she comes back drunk.Marcus continues to show up at the motel, and he wants to do more than schoolwork. Hank interferes, either because he wants to be like Josie's father or because he is secretly attracted to her. If it is the latter, Martha thinks that is sick, and she confronts Hank one night to tell him so. Hank does show up dressed nice carrying flowers, but Marcus is there.Hank takes Josie to the marina, where he is considering buying a nicer boat. It is there that he tells Josie his story. He worked at the Huntsville, Texas prison that is known for executing more people than any other U.S. prison. It was his job to (along with several other guards) tie up the condemned when the sentence was carried out. And one man was found to be innocent years after the fact. That led Hank to quit his job and leave Huntsville. He has never gotten over being a part of that.One night Josei and hank are just sitting and talking. Josie says she was taught about Jesus as a child and her mother, who was apparently raising her alone, ridiculed the idea. Hank isn't religious, while Josie says she has continued to wonder.Josie wants Marcus and Hank to get along, so she has them come together to talk out their differences, and they agree to be civil to each other. As they are talking, Hank tells Marcus how much he enjoys fishing, and Marcus says he likes to hunt. He even pulls out a knife that even Crocodile Dundee would respect. Marcus and Hank are drinking, and Hank appears to pass out. His vision of the man in prison is much longer this time, as the audience sees what happened when the innocent man was put to death. A little girl with a woman who might be her mother is seeing all this. Why would a little girl be there?The audience soon learns the answer. Hank wakes up tied to a chair and Josie finally tells him her real story. She has a photo of herself at age 4 with her father, just before he was arrested. Josie and her mother visited for years, and then one day her father was executed. It is clear she somehow knew how to find Hank, and she seems to say she has looked for others who played a role in her father's death. While at first Josie gives Hank credit for having regrets, that isn't enough, and she cuts Hank's throat with Marcus' knife.Hank narrates the next scene, which repeats the movie's opening. Cops show up. This time the audience learns why. Marcus has been framed and he is taken away. The cops know that Hank and Marcus both seemed to be attracted to Josie and that they didn't get along. It is also suggested Josie wasn't even her name.In the movie's final scenes, Josie is driving somewhere, and she has short black hair. She shows up at a bar and wants to meet someone. A group of guards from the Huntsville prison is there, and "Francine" seems interested in one named Matthew.

Genre: Action   Drama   Thriller