STRIP

Perry (Fidelity, 2008, etc.) shows the cascade of lethal consequences following a strip-club owner’s misidentification of the man who robbed him.

Joe Carver came to Los Angeles with a lot of cash and a profligate determination to throw it around. That’s why his name came up when Manco Kapak’s thugs began asking questions about recent arrivals too dumb to realize that Kapak wasn’t the ideal target to rob as he was making a bank deposit. Since Kapak is laundering money for the likes of drug lord Manuel Rogoso, he can’t afford to look weak enough to let the suspect skate, even if he’s decided that Carver isn’t the ski-masked man who hijacked him. But Carver is not without resources of his own. When he can’t persuade Kapak to drop the matter, he steals his company credit card and runs up $100,000 in charges. Enraged, Kapak mounts a full-court press against this unaccountable new enemy even as Rogoso is calculating whether to cut his ties to the ineffectual old man. The real robber, Jefferson Davis Falkins, has meanwhile hooked up with a lovely young sociopath considerably more risk-addicted than he is. Kapak’s driver, Richard Spence, is thinking about turning independent. And Lt. Nick Slosser, the LAPD detective assigned to the case, is wondering where he can get the money to finance a delicate operation of his own.

The first half of this shaggy, violent tale is a miracle of dead-eyed invention. It’s only when the cast members start running out of options that the story starts running out of steam.