Billy Cain (George Katt) is at the end of his rope. His life has fallen into complete disarray, he’s working three jobs and his bank account is still in the negative, and he feels utterly alone. After trying to take a mass of sleeping pills and jump off a bridge, he does the only thing he can think to do, and calls his friend Perry (Waylon Payne) from high school. They haven’t seen each other for fifteen years, but Perry knows his friend needs him, and leaves his wife and child at home to go rescue his friend, in spite of the late hour, and his wife Lisa’s (Judy Jerome) concerns. A friend is a friend, no matter how much time has passed, and Perry is a good guy. When he gets to Billy, he’s shocked by what terrible shape he’s in. Checking in on his friend is going to turn out to be a long night – much longer and weirder than he could ever have guessed.

Billy and Perry start their night out at a diner, sobering Billy up enough for him to go back home – or so Perry thinks. After Billy, without Perry knowing,  has a violent altercation at the diner, he seems to perk up. Suddenly what looked like a somber night of sobering up a depressed friend is looking to be a wild night out on the town. A few stops and a lot of waffling on Perry’s part brings them to a strip bar, where they meet Sherri (Rosebud Baker) and Candy (Sayra Player), and Billy runs into an old “friend”. It seems Billy has a history Perry doesn’t know about and is in for a lot more than he bargained for — and when Billy and Perry decide to take the girls back to a hotel for a night, things take a dark turn that could change their lives and their friendship forever. 

TURNABOUT is chock full of stunning performances, wrapped up in a mediocre script. While TURNABOUT has a story to tell, it’s one we’ve heard before, and one we don’t need to hear again. There isn’t enough of a new or interesting spin on this tired story to make it worth it. The only thing truly special about this movie is the acting, which is across the board delivered with nuance and subtlety. Both male leads have incredible pathos, amazing chemistry with each other and with their female counterparts, and a great deal of screen presence and charisma. Katt’s depth as Billy is the only thing keeping his character from being completely unlikeable and unforgivable. Payne’s Perry is sympathetic and conflicted, without too much saccharine brooding.

As is a too-common theme in movies of all stripes these days, the portrayal of women, and sex workers, leaves a lot to be desired. The character of Lisa is one dimensional, bitchy at best, and remarkably unsympathetic. She’s there for no purpose except to provide a conflict in Perry’s situation. She has no real motivation except to antagonize Perry. Bechdel test failure number one. The characters of Sherri and Candy (really… Candy…) are completely flat, and unfortunately utilize the ugly tropes that I thought we were at least 30 or 40 years past for sex workers… drug addicted, sex addicted, and again, with zero real depth or character beyond being road bumps in these men’s lives. I couldn’t tell you a distinctive feature of either woman, or anything about them beyond them being sex workers. This is bad, if you haven’t noticed. And the usual violence against sex workers, painting sex workers as absent mothers, and so on all create a dangerous and outdated cocktail. Not for my taste – not at all.

I hate when movies leave a bad taste in my mouth, and this one does on a few levels. TURNABOUT paints too many distasteful pictures and doesn’t have anything new to say to counteract that. The cast does their best with a less than stellar script — good enough that I’m inspired to look them up and find better work — because TURNABOUT did not give them a fair play.

4/10 stars