James Lee Burke: the film adaptations

There are three notable James Lee Burke film adaptations. None are perfect. All three are pretty damn watchable.

Heaven’s Prisoners (1996) opens with ex-cop Dave Robicheaux, played by Alec Baldwin, admitting to his struggle with alcoholism during confession. He and his wife Annie (Kelly Lynch) save a child from an airplane which crashes in the water. The plane had help, and soon people start dropping by Robicheaux’s bait shop—an FBI agent (Vondie Curtis-Hall), as well as goons who work for local crime lord Bubba Roque (Eric Roberts).

Bubba is Robicheaux’s old high school buddy, and his introduction is great. Robicheaux drives up, sees Bubba’s wife Claudette (Teri Hatcher) nude on the veranda of their mansion, and finds Bubba in a backyard boxing ring. They discuss the case, trade threats and eat a giant plate of shrimp. Claudette wanders out with a thermos of gin rickeys.

Director Phil Joanou and screenwriters Harley Peyton and Scott Frank create solid action scenes, especially after assassins pay a visit to Robicheaux’s home, and he sets out to track them through New Orleans. It’s too stately paced for an action movie, but correct for a layered, slow-burn noir. Heaven’s Prisoners went up considerably in my estimation on a second viewing. Hatcher and Roberts are both really good, and good together, and 90s Alec Baldwin is a solid leading man.

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Tommy Lee Jones was born to play Dave Robicheaux. Whereas Baldwin is doing an accent and relying on charisma, in In the Electric Mist (2009) TLJ simply is the part—decent, dogged, and a little fed up with the world. Not only does that recall his character in No Country For Old Men, but costar Kelly MacDonald shows up as one half of a movie star couple in post-Katrina Louisiana to make a Civil War film.

A deputy sheriff, Robicheaux is investigating the murder of a sex worker, which might be the work of a serial killer. The victim knew Robicheaux’s old baseball pal, the crime lord Baby Feet (John Goodman), who’s financing the movie. As penance for a DUI, the film’s star (Peter Sarsgaard) tells Robicheaux about a corpse he saw out in the swamp. The body was the result of a lynching Robicheaux witnessed in his teens.

From that description you can tell the film is overly plotted. Thankfully director Bertrand Tavernier rightly sticks the plot on the backburner, making the film more about Robicheaux’s interactions with colourful characters, including a bluesman (Buddy Guy), a cranky film director (John Sayles, in a neat cameo) and a rich businessman (Ned Beatty).

In the Electric Mist has the feel of a good made-for-TV movie—a high compliment, for me. Not a lot of stunning action scenes, but a good time hanging out with Tommy Lee Jones.

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God’s Country (2022) stars Thandiwe Newton as a college professor and former cop named Guidry. While grieving her mother’s death and cleaning out her family’s isolated cabin, she’s bothered by a pair of local hunters.

Where does bad behavior end and a threat begin? Things get awkward, then uncomfortable, then violent. No one at Guidry’s college can help her, and she will only bend so much. There’s a feeling of escalating danger to her interactions with the hunters, who are sketched three-dimensionally. Guidry’s backstory as a cop traumatized by Hurricane Katrina and witnessing the social order fall apart, informs how she deals with them.

Newton is really good in what’s obviously a gender swapped and colourblind role, which add undercurrents to the confrontations with the (male, white) hunters. God’s Country is a nice mix between character study and survival film.

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All three of these reflect something about how their era adapts crime fiction. A 90s neo-noir with Alec Baldwin gets a pretty healthy budget. A smaller Tommy Lee Jones film has a great cast and few setpieces. God’s Country is a low-budget indie featuring Thandiwe Newton often on her own, which adds to the story’s sense of isolation.