As we have been without internet now for a week, we decided to go old school and revisit
Redbox and check out what we missed in 2020 and 2021, and boy was there a lot! Since the
hubby has been missing his westerns, I thought “Death in Texas” might fill the void.
Our movie begins with a narrator, whom we discover to be lead character, Billy Walker
lamenting the complexities of life. “Life isn’t black and white, real life lives in the gray and
sometimes people find themselves on a path of evil by decisions in their lives, that are
sometimes not their own in making” This of course comes from Billy, who is currently in prison
for the last seven years for killing someone.
Billy is up for parole, and it’s not going well as he’s not taking full responsibility for his crime.
Just as they are pronouncing him unfit for parole, a court officer enters slips the parole board a
note, and Billy you won the parole lottery, you are now a free man.
Billy heads home, to his mother and this is where I have my first issue. Billy and his Mom look
the same age, though it’s a bit hard as Lara Flynn Boyle who plays Billy’s Mom has had a ton of
not so good plastic surgery and way too many fillers. Yes, his Mom had Billy at 15-16 and Billy
was in prison for 7 years, and in a flashback Billy was maybe in his early-mid 20’s…….do the
math it doesn’t work, the casting was wrong and this throws me off right away.
We soon discover Grace, Billy’s Mom has less than a year to live due to liver failure and needs
an organ transplant. But, she has a rare blood type, and she’s not anywhere near the top of the
transplant list. Billy speaks with Grace’s doctor who tells him her only chance is going to
Mexico for a transplant, at a cost of $160,000 cash.
Well, you know where this is going, no one wants to hire an ex-convict, and he needs $160,000
immediately, because his mother soon collapses, and the one-year prognosis is shortened to
two months. Billy is quickly burglarizing drug cartel safe houses and killing anyone and
everyone who gets in his way from the $160,000.
Grace, who has been married two times, isn’t letting a little thing like end stage liver failure
stop her from looking for husband number three, and strikes a flirtatious friendship with her
male nurse, John. Grace recounts to John, her history of not learning from his past bad
relationships which she calls “Welcome to the land of bad decisions.” John is moved to confess
his own bad decisions in life, that he was a doctor, but his life fell apart a few years ago and he’s
working on getting back on his own path.
Soon, deathbed Grace and John are sucking face and eating chocolate pudding together in her
hospital room. As Mom is sucking face with John, Billy is being hunted by the drug cartel, who
at this point must have enough money for the transplant. And honestly, why didn’t they just
sell or mortgage her house for the money?
Death in Texas is divided into chapters with the titles flashed onto the screen: Evil, Free,
Choices, Sorrow, Power, Sacrifice, Reckoning and Redemption which pretty much describes
Billy’s journey from the start to end of the movie.
Honestly, the script is pretty good and ties multiple story lines together very well, you are not
left hanging at the end.
My main complaint is the casting of Grace and son Billy, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Add
in the unrealistic prepping for an organ transplant surgery, before there is actually an organ to
transplant. But procedures must be different when the patient is paying cash and supplying
their own organs.
All in all, it was something different and at an hour and forty just the right length.
Death in Texas is rated B minus. Our drink of choice? Billy must have guzzled half a dozen
bottles of Jack Daniels and a case of beer, so take your choice. But be classy… bottled beer not
cans.
