A private investigator reads a book of sinister origins and unknowingly puts his daughter and himself in a fight for their lives…and their eternal souls.

Okay, Stop. Residue, written and directed by Rusty Nixon, is a tale of private investigator Luke Harding (James Clayton), who is in the middle of a dangerous investigation involving a supernatural tome when his transient daughter Angelina (Taylor Hickson) arrives to complicate matters. Is the metaphysical book that Luke has in his possession playing tricks with his mind as he attempts to maintain a relationship with his daughter? This ambitious amalgam of Lynch, noir, and action comedy tries so hard to get everything done that it accomplishes little in the process and leaves the audience perplexed.

The film is told in chapter breaks. Crime lord Mr. Fairweather (Matt Frewer) hires Luke to drop a mysterious antique, hand written book to someone when the drop off goes horribly wrong. Luke takes the cargo home and, as curiosity would have it, he begins to read the text. Soon Luke is insnared in a supernatural narrative of his own the blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. Add to this the fact that Luke is attempting to resurrect his relationship with his 20 something daughter who has asked to sleep on his couch for a bit and you have more than enough to build a compellng narrative from.

Residue looks great. Let’s start with that. The film looks as if it were shot with a studio sized budget. The make up effects, too, are for the most part impressive and a hell of  a lot of fun to watch. Where is the problem? The story. We have a private investigator, hired by a crime lord to deliver a book. The courier of the book reads said pay load and soon becomes the subject of intense surveillance and scrutiny.

Where is it all headed? We can’t tell you as we really believe in not spoiling things. Where does it all go? Someplace. Just not someplace totally rewarding.

Matt Frewer‘s Mr. Fairweather is a welcome return to the screen for this character actor. James Clayton‘s Luke is the average every-man detective, who seems too young to have a daughter as grown up and beautiful as Taylor Hickson. None of would really matter if the narrative wasn’t so segmented.

In the end, Residue has some great things in it, some fun performances, some beautiful production work, yet the storyline is at once cliche’d and too ambitious.