Paydirt (2020)

1 Star (out of 4)

Gone to Pot

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Built from a grab-bag of stolen bits and pieces from heist movies, but assembled in a way that makes little sense, this B movie has dull characters and an unhappy use of cancer survivor Val Kilmer.

In Paydirt, in charge of a drug bust five years ago, Sheriff Tucker (Kilmer) botches the job and is removed from office. Meanwhile, The Brit (Luke Goss), was arrested for possession of marijuana. In the present day, he has been released and now re-forms his old team to find the $33 million he hid. They are: The Brains (Mike Hatton), the Brawn (Paul Sloan), the Babe (Murielle Telio) and the Badass (Veronika Bozeman). Unfortunately, Tucker has been waiting for this moment to get his revenge.

Though Goss is the star, Kilmer is arguably the driving force of Paydirt, but he looks so frail, and so unconvincing in the role of a disgraced sheriff that the movie never gets any momentum. Due to the near-loss of Kilmer's own voice, he has been sloppily dubbed by a voice actor, but at least he gets a couple of scenes with his real-life daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, which otherwise don't seem to go with the plot.

The rest of the characters seem to have been assembled for their ability to fit into their "B" code names than for any logical reason, and Telio as the "Babe" and Bozeman as the Badass, are mainly here to be ogled and objectified. The details of what actually happen in the plot are pretty hazy, as there are so many scenes of characters joking around, or scenes of the beautiful Coachella scenery, that they become diluted. And it's likely that they were never really worked out in the first place. The only thing Paydirt really has going for it is its dumb, grinning attitude and a bearable running time (85 minutes).