The Burghart Brothers make the leap from shorts to features with Head Count, a pulpy, twisting, well-whiskey shot of a flick. Adapted from their 2014 short film of the same name, the movie is described by Deadline as “Blood Simple meets Memento.” While Ben and Jacob Burghart’s first feature never quite soars to the heights of those storied predecessors, it instead achieves something just as admirable: Head Count is its own damn thing.

We leap right to the crux, in media res, with a six-shooter pressed to the head of our Hawaiian shirt clad hero. Things don’t look great for Kat (Aaron Jakubenko) and before we can get a grip on the situation, we’re yanked back in time. Two days prior, Kat is working on a chain gang in the dead of night. After a fellow prisoner is permitted to take a leak in the Kansas cornfield they’re working, we’re overwhelmed by human screams mingled with roars from an unseen animal. Uh oh. The chain linking the prisoners yanks toward certain doom and all hell breaks loose. With this, comes our first laugh when Ryan Kwanten’s Sawyer, a charming sleazeball in law enforcement, agrees to shoot Kat free. He dopily aims his shotgun at Kat’s leg to which he screams, “The chain, you idiot!” It’s a deft invitation from the filmmakers that declares: Yup, shit’s about to get real tense but don’t sweat it because there’s laughs aplenty to untie those knots in your belly.

Kat escapes, procures that six-shooter, and our joyride begins. All this before the gloriously retro title credits roll. And guess what? Head Count never lets up off the gas. Kat’s thrust into one nerve-jangling situation after the next, chock-full of oddball strangers and loved ones from his pre-prison past, as he ducks the law and fights to survive a fresh threat. In a nifty device, numbers signifying time passed and bullets fired tick over the on-screen chaos. Besides looking cool as hell and revving us up for the ride, the numbers serve two key purposes. The meting out of exposition in flashbacks becomes unique instead of by the numbers (unintentional pun) and it never lets us forget the impending showdown and the question that comes with it: just how many bullets are left in the chamber of that six-shooter pointed at our hero’s head?

There’s much to praise in Head Count’s fraught and fun 80 minutes. The performances, particularly Jakubenko’s, do more than justice to the tight screenplay by the Burghart Brothers and Josh Doke. The production design by Cory Hinesley (that wall of Jesus paintings in the arm dealer’s ratty house!) and costume design by Elizabeth Bohannon (that wild poncho calling back to old-school Westerns!) bring the places and people to life. And the Burghart Brothers’ assured, stylish direction brings it all home. Minor quibbles: a long-lost love, gamely played by Melanie Zanetti, doesn’t get much to do and an undercooked voiceover performance undercuts a pivotal moment.

When we arrive at the inevitable showdown, it’s gratifying in the best possible way. The rationale behind the climactic face-off is not, unfortunately, and it stops this ride just short of greatness.