Some justice comes with a badge. Some comes with a body count.
In Bad Man, justice doesn’t wear a uniform. It lies. It cheats. It does what it has to do to get the job done—and it doesn’t ask for permission. Because when good men do nothing, evil doesn’t just win—it thrives. And when the town’s already broken from the inside out, you don’t send in a hero to clean up the mess. You send in someone worse.
Bad Man is a Southern crime story soaked in blood and betrayal. It’s not about moral lines—it’s about how many rules you’ll break before you realize there’s no such thing as clean justice. Corrupt cops. Meth kingpins. Small-town scumbags with big-town ambitions. It’s ugly, bitter, and drenched in revenge carried out by a man who shouldn’t be here—because, legally speaking, he’s not supposed to be.
SPOILERS BELOW – TURN BACK NOW IF YOU WANT TO GO IN CLEAN.
Colt Lake has two exports: meth and disappointment, and after an unknown man is beaten and run down in the streets, sending a clear message—if you try to interfere in Dog Downer’s (Ethan Suplee) meth business, the only thing you can expect is to end up a stain on main street.
After two weeks with no real leads into the murder, thanks to the mishandling of the case by Deputy Sam Evans, a man who behind his back the townsfolk mock, dismiss, and treat like the town’s tragic afterthought—which, to be fair, he mostly is. That is, until Bobby Gaines (Sean William Scott) rides into town.
Scott plays Gaines like a smirking, wisecracking tornado of charm, threats, and bad ideas. Flashing a badge from the Tennessee Narcotics Task Force, he walks in like the town’s savior. But the deeper he digs—and the more violent and unstable he becomes—the closer you realize this guy isn’t here to serve or protect.
What follows is a slow spiral into backwoods bureaucracy, southern-fried corruption, and vigilante tactics that flirt with war crimes. When Gaines heads out to meet the only lead Evans was able to scrape up, he shows just how far he’s willing to go to get results—even if it means threatening to shove someone’s pet down a garbage disposal to make them talk.
He’s only been in town a few hours, but he’s already made more progress than Evans has in weeks. The witness, shaken and cornered, admits he saw the victim with Jasper Perkins the night he was murdered.
Gaines weasels his way into Perkins’ trust and sets up a drop—but it turns out Perkins isn’t quite as stupid as he looks. After paying him an unsuspected visit at his home, Gaines hauls him into the station and proves that he can either talk—or find out the hard way what happens when you don’t cooperate with the police.
Proving that he has a way of getting people to bend to his will, Perkins tells him all about Dog’s little operation in town, and how the victim, Travis, was killed to send a message to the Dixie Mafia: you don’t try to cross or haggle with Dog. After all, you don’t make deals with the devil.
As this case continues to unfold, it becomes more and more obvious that Gaines has no line he won’t cross in order to get his man—including putting the lives of those around him in danger, all in the name of finding justice. Forcing Evans to start acting like a cop, where he finally finds out the truth about Gaines—and the fake badge he has been hiding behind.
Confronting him with the truth, Gaines reveals that Travis was his brother, and that he came here to catch his killer. In the heat of the moment, the pair make a startling revelation: what if Dog isn’t the only corruption in town, but also the one man who claims to be trying to save the town—if it means, like Gaines himself, he has to get his hands dirty first to do it.
Armed with knowledge and against his better judgment, Evans brings Gaines to see the mayor, to confront him on his involvement with Dog—where he confesses to cutting a deal: keep the meth out of town, and he’d hook them up with his old Dixie Mafia connections from his trucking days. He gets a cut and reinvests it into the town.
After learning of the drop, Gaines shows his true colors and goes off to confront Dog. But remember: those who go out looking for revenge better dig two graves—because it’s certain that someone is dying tonight.
Will Gaines have his revenge? Will this Dog have his day? Or will Evans finally earn his badge? Either way, you can bet not everyone is walking away alive—and hell’s going to have new occupants by the end of the night.
Bad Man comes armed with all the ingredients for a great anti-hero crime story—questionable ethics, corrupt politicians, a revenge plot soaked in blood and meth, and the kind of corrupt back-and-forth that makes you question who the hell’s really wearing the badge. And when it works? It works
You’ve got interrogations that blur the line between procedure and felonious assault. You’ve got a guy smashing a Civil Rights plaque and nearly force-feeding it to a suspect—just to remind him those rights don’t apply here. Then come the lies about witness protection, backwoods paranoia, and yes—there’s a moment where someone threatens to shove a small animal into a garbage disposal.
If you’re into stories about unhinged lawmen who don’t just bend the rules but obliterate them (Training Day, Street Kings), you’ll feel right at home. The only real difference? This one doesn’t have the studio gloss.
Bad Man feels rough around the edges, sometimes a little off balance—like it’s trying to pull you into something grimmer than it’s ready for. Moments where it leans forward, ready to bite, only to pull back and sit obediently instead. You feel the real film trying to claw its way out.
That might be a casting issue. It might be behind-the-scenes restraint. But whatever it is, it shows.
The supporting cast doesn’t help. The local police force feels like an open mic night for deputies. For every scene that’s played straight, there’s another that belongs in a rejected SNL sketch. Rob Riggle’s Police Chief—love him, but it feels like someone dared Mr. Rogers to cosplay Andy Griffith and handed him a badge. Doesn’t land.
Sam Evans (Johnny Simmons) pulls the straight-man weight, but he’s so neutral he’s on the verge of becoming part of the background set. You can tell he wants to do good—but he never really earns the edge that the story clearly needs from him.
Now, Ethan Suplee as Dog Downer had potential to be a real backwoods monster. He should’ve been terrifying. Instead, we get the silhouette of menace—but it never hits full boil. Suplee can go dangerous—we’ve seen him hit those octaves before. So whatever held that back? Whether it was the script or the direction, it’s a missed opportunity.
Same goes for Sean William Scott. We’ve watched him shed the Stifler ghost over the last few years and turn into this looming, unpredictable force of nature. The Wrath of Becky showed what he can do when he’s let completely off the chain. But here? It’s like every sharp moment is followed by a reel-in. Like someone wanted him to be charming, funny, dangerous, deadly—and couldn’t decide which mattered most. It’s a performance that wants to cut deep, but keeps checking to see if it’s gone too far.
Here’s the deal: Bad Man is a good film. It could’ve been great. It’s got the bones. The attitude. The performances. The blood, the grime, and just enough moral decay to sit comfortably next to the better-known, badge-bending crime stories we’ve seen before. But instead of spiraling into something truly reckless and unforgettable, you can feel something pulling it back—like someone cinched a leash around its neck right when it was about to bare its teeth.
The result? It walks right up to the edge… but never jumps. And the whole time, you want it to jump. You want it to crash through the wall, not stop and check if it’s supposed to be here.
That said—don’t get it twisted. This is still a film that deserves your time.
It might not blow your doors off. It might not leave your jaw on the floor.
But Bad Man gets in, throws punches, picks at something dirty underneath, and doesn’t care how clean it looks doing it. It gives you ugly justice, busted badges, and a main character who doesn’t just break the rules—he fakes his way onto the damn force so he can break them louder.
It’s rough. It’s flawed. And yeah—it pulls a few of its punches when it should’ve gone all in.
But if you’ve got a thing for broken systems, revenge with a grudge, and stories where no one’s the good guy—then Bad Man is absolutely worth checking out.
It doesn’t soar.
It grinds.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
Bad Man starts streaming September 22. Just don’t expect it to play nice.
