Digging into the current opioid epidemic plaguing communities across America, Inherit The Viper is a new crime thriller from writer, Andrew Crabtree, and director, Anthony Jerjen, that follows three siblings, Kip (Josh Hartnett), Josie (Margarita Levieva), and Boots (Owen Teague), who get by on dealing opioids in their small, impoverished town. However, when a deal goes horribly wrong, Kip wants out, but Josie is keen on fixing the trouble they find themselves in. The family falls into a spiral of violence and betrayal where they are forced to reckon with their situation, and the legacy that they ultimately leave behind with their line of work.
The most compelling aspect of the film is the family dynamic at the center of it. No one of the three really take center stage. The film gives each of them room to breathe and explore their characters. Only a little backstory is revealed through exposition, but they are so richly drawn that the presence and the way the actors all bounce off one another does a great job at establishing their relationships to one another without feeling obligated to spell things out in an obvious way.
Adding onto that are the performances, which are strong across the board. I was impressed by Levieva, who commands every scene she’s in as the de facto leader of the entire family operation. Hartnett does well in showcasing the weight that the opioid dealing has affected his outlook, especially as it relates to his future with a pregnant girlfriend. Through the complications with his work as well as facing people who have been affected by opioid epidemic, there’s this sense of tension you can see growing inside of him, and you’re just waiting to see if that builds to something good, or if he explodes like a bomb. Teague also shines as the inexperienced kid who doesn’t fully grasp the broader implications of their work, and the consequences that come of it. Aside from those three, the film also has some solid work from supporting players like Bruce Dern, Chandler Riggs, and Brad William Henke.
Anthony Jerjen makes a fairly strong directorial debut with this. The film does well in crafting these suspenseful sequences where you wonder if things will take a turn – which they usually do. The cinematography is patient, observant, and keeps you on edge at numerous points. The way the film dramatizes the situation mostly avoids the kind of sensationalism you’d see in other works that almost fetishize the poverty similar to the community in this film. There’s a matter-of-factness to the presentation here, but it’s all grounded in character, and you buy into these people. The violence is also given a lot of weight where the impact of every hit and every bullet is felt.
The biggest feeling that I got out of Inherit The Viper is the sense of inevitability. The title is inspired by a story told by Bruce Dern’s character, a bar owner, talking about an incident from his childhood where a friend was bitten by a snake, but instead of telling an adult and risk getting in trouble, they kept quiet, and the venom eventually killed his friend. The characters at the center of all this drama are committed to a choice, it’s a choice that is flawed, troubling, and puts them in risky situations, but for some reason, they feel like this is the life they are bound to have, and that kind of life doesn’t usually lead to a happy end. That sense of inevitability is a huge undercurrent, and while I don’t think the film does much in exploring the opioid crisis in depth as some might prefer, I think it paints an honest picture of the kind of people involved, and it makes for a compelling little thriller.