Cinema Scholars’ Rebecca Elliott chats with director John Swab about his latest indie crime thriller Ida Red, which opens in Theaters, On Digital and On Demand on November 5, 2021, courtesy of Saban Films.
Introduction
With such an abundance of lower-budget crime dramas these days, it can sometimes be hit-or-miss as far as quality. For every great shoot-em-up, many just don’t quite hit their mark. To carve out a compelling story amid misdeeds is a daunting challenge for a filmmaker. However, sometimes a director combines just the right mix of mayhem and heart. Add writer/director John Swab’s latest thriller Ida Red to this success list.
Set in Oklahoma, Ida Red tells the story of a small-time crime family. Ailing matriarch Ida (Melissa Leo) still calls the shots from jail 15 years after landing herself in the clink from a nefarious scheme gone wrong. Her two grown sons, Wyatt and Dallas (Josh Hartnett and Frank Grillo) hold down the fort and lie just low enough to evade their law-enforcement side of the family. That is, until a recent botched heist draws unwanted attention.
As the brothers attempt to “clean it up” at the behest of Ida, they also formulate a plan to get their dear, dying Mother out of the state pen, by parole, or otherwise. This is so she can avoid spending her final days imprisoned. As with all great crime thrillers, not everything goes as planned. The brothers must contend with family drama, as well as the narrowing chances of pulling off their last big job. All while honoring Ida’s wishes.
Shot on location in and around Tulsa, Swab’s elegant but gritty tribute to questionable honor among thieves feels as genuine as it does dark. Helming a cast of outstanding players, Swab gives his collaborators the space to perform their craft, without distracting cutaways. He allows for the natural pauses in conversations which, in turn, allows the nuance of his actors’ performances to shine brilliantly.
Despite its smaller budget, Ida Red is a real-deal, legit crime drama packed with all the fun bells and whistles. Hangars full of fancy planes, a kingpin minister, a hardened FBI Special Agent, and an epic shootout adorn all the heavy drama.
Cinema Scholars recently had the opportunity to talk to writer/director John Swab about the making of Ida Red, working with such incredible performers, and leaning into his Oklahoma roots to bring his vision to life onscreen.
Interview
Rebecca:
Hi John.
John:
Hey, how you doing?
Rebecca:
I’m good, I’m really good. Thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today about Ida Red. I’m excited to grill you.
John:
Thanks, I appreciate it. Grilling is welcome, thanks for taking the time.
Rebecca:
Yeah. Well, first off I am a born and raised Okie, transplanted to Austin 20 some years ago. So of course my first question has to be, why did you choose to set this story in Oklahoma? And I think you shot there as well. Was it because of great incentives or do you have some other Oklahoma inspiration?
John:
I’m from Tulsa born and raised so it’s very much in me the whole Okie thing.
Rebecca:
And Tulsa happens to be a really cool place to shoot too.
John:
That’s true. Yeah, I’ve done… I’m trying to think. This was my fourth movie in Tulsa.
Rebecca:
Right on.
John:
Yeah, so a lot of experience shooting here and lot of pride in doing so.
Rebecca:
And you’ve probably have built quite a community around your work there as well. Kind of a big fish in a little pond, I imagine?
John:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it took me a while to realize, but it’s been one of the best parts about choosing this career path and having some success in it is also being able to give job opportunities to people that never in their life would’ve thought they’d be working in movies or that their skillsets would translate to making a film. I have a lot of friends here. One of them is a trash man and he also happens to be a great mechanic and carpenter. And now he’s the lead carpenter on our films. He built the interrogation rooms in Ida Red and that’s one example of many of us finding people and giving them an opportunity to do something they didn’t think was possible. So it’s been a really cool experience to shoot here where I’m from.
Rebecca:
That is so cool, I love that so much. Also, I noticed that you’ve worked with some repeat actors, bigger names as well as lesser known names. Can you talk about repeat collaborations and just how that process works?
John:
Yeah. I mean, it’s really flattering to me that these people keep saying yes to come back and work with me. A lot of them are world class actors who have worked with a lot of the people that I look up to and have worked with actors that are full blown movie stars and legends, you know?
Rebecca:
Totally!
John:
So I don’t know. I think I don’t really know how to answer the question. All I would say is it’s really flattering, and I think it has something thing to do with the fact that I write. And I take a lot of pride in my writing and a lot of the times, especially in the case of Ida Red and Melissa [Leo] and Frank [Grillo] and William Forsythe, and George Carroll… I mean, I wrote these characters for those people, so then I got to go to them and say, “Hey, I wrote this character for you.” And I don’t know how often that happens. And maybe it happens more than I know about, but I think it’s probably flattering enough to get them to at least read it.
Rebecca:
I mean, of course there’s that! But then also your directing style… you seem to give them a really good opportunity to chew up some screen. I love that you really let the scenes play out without indulging in the ton of cutaways. You embrace the natural silence in conversation. Can you talk about that? I think maybe that’s why some of these actors like working with you. Because you let them act.
John:
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s probably true and they’ve also told me that’s the case, so I guess you’re probably right. I don’t know. These people come and they come down here to say my words and to be a part of this world that I’m trying to create and I mean, I know what they do and I know how good they are at what they do. And it would be a shame for me to not try and distill as much of that out of them as possible, you know? And a lot of the time that means… Like in the case of Melissa, she has that parole hearing monologue…
Rebecca:
Oh, it’s so good. So Good.
John:
Yeah. And it’s one of those moments where I remember when we were filming it and I was sitting on the Dolly track as it was being pushed in and I was watching it. I wasn’t even watching the monitor, I was just watching her, and I was like, “This is really special. I can’t even believe this is happening.” I don’t always think a cut in a scene is disrespectful but I feel like sometimes it can be. And for me, I like to try and find those moments and make a point not to cut, you know?
Rebecca:
Absolutely. I like also the diner scene with Wyatt and Dallas [Josh Hartnett and Frank Grillo]. You kind of stretch that one out too, and it’s wonderful because you get this moment where these two tough guys are having a real moment. And I think so many directors would’ve just filled all these silences with… real life is full of awkward silences and the spaces where you think, but in cinema I think you also give the audience an opportunity to think too.
John:
I’m glad you pointed out that scene with Frank and Josh in the diner. I mean, that’s one of my favorite moments in the whole movie. And for that reason- because it’s these two kind of macho man’s man guys sitting there having what starts off as just a vulnerable moment for Josh and then turns into a vulnerable moment for both of them. The funny thing about that scene is that I didn’t plan that days ahead, and we actually only had 30 minutes to film in that diner for that scene and the scene to follow. So it was a judgment call where I was like, “You know what, let’s just stick it on the Dolly track and push in on these guys and see what happens. They’re both good enough.” And we did that. I think we just called reset and did that three or four times and that’s what happened. And it’s one of my favorite moments in the movie because A: I know the backstory of how it happened, but B: just how it turned out and how much of creative a moment it is.
Rebecca:
It really adds a lot of depth that other smaller crime film miss. Also, as a writer, all of the characters and dialogue seem so authentic. From the main players all the way down to the extras, everything seems so authentic. Is all that on the page or do you give your actor space to improvise at all?
John:
I’m pretty collaborative and it really just depends on the situation and the actor. I mean, somebody like Frank Grillo, for instance, I mean, he is very authentic in who he is and what he brings to the table and so we have a lot of conversations on set about, “What if I tried it this way? What if I tried it that way?” And I like to give people like him the freedom to try those things and if we have time, I like to give everybody the freedom to do that. In the case of the kids, I mean, a lot of them are eager to learn. They’re not bringing up ideas a lot of the time. Sometimes they do but most of the time they’re just kind of eager to be there and be taught. So yeah, I’d say everybody is different and every situation’s different, but I’m definitely not the kind of person who shoots down an idea from an actor.
Rebecca:
I just wanted to mention there’s two key moments where you used pop musical cues over disturbing visuals. Can you talk about that choice?
John:
Yeah, I mean, I think the two you’re talking about with Frank’s dance and then the suicide and the jail cell, the dance was not on the page. The dance kind of happened on the day we had the idea and Jeremy [Rosen] found the music and Frank choreographed his own dance. It just came to be and I’m really proud of that moment. And then the jail scene with the Madonna song. Madonna was not written into the script but I had the music cue written into the script as well as the taillight dissolve into the eyes. And that was something I really wanted to try and execute because I thought it would be just a transition that I hadn’t seen that I thought would be a really fun thing for the movie. And we shot it, I edited it without music in there and then Jeremy found the “Crazy For You” track and we just dropped it in and it never moved after we dropped it in. It was like, “Holy shit, this is so much fun.”
Rebecca:
It’s so effective and so, oh, it’s so great. That song has never been so evocative!
John:
Thank you.
Rebecca:
Ida Red is a legit action heist thriller. I mean, you have all the bells and whistles in there including an incredible shootout scene. I guess that’s not too much of a spoiler alert in an action thriller. You also have incredible sets like a hangar full of badass planes and all these really cool elements. On top of the incredible family drama, can you talk about making an action film with all the glitz? How do you reign it all in? How do you keep it cohesive? Is everything perfectly choreographed?
John:
That’s a big question. I’ll do my best to answer it. First of all, I mean, this is a very indie movie and we did our best to hide that with all the things you mentioned, the cast, the locations, the shootout, and it really just came down to planning a lot and even down to… When I wrote the script, I knew the locations I wanted to use because I’m from Oklahoma and I kind of know the resources I had in terms… I knew somebody who had a hangar full of planes. I knew these restaurants I wanted to shoot in. I knew what cars I wanted to use, and I knew who had those cars. So I kind of was very careful in the writing process of not writing myself into something I couldn’t shoot and having to solve that problem later. So it started there, and if you have a script that’s at least shootable, then you can kind of plan accordingly. We have great people that work with us and Jeremy, my producer, and I spent a lot of time talking about how we were going to do stuff. And then as we hired on the crew, they gave their input and luckily we got it all done.
Rebecca:
And I had no idea that Tulsa has tunnels under downtown! If you ever shoot in underground tunnels again, you must shoot in the tunnels in Oklahoma City. Have you ever been down in there?
John:
No, I’ve only been in the ones in Tulsa.
Rebecca:
They’re all different colored tunnels and some of them are lit with colored lights as well. I’m dying for someone to shoot something there, so I was pretty stoked to learn about the Tulsa tunnels too!
John:
Oh, that’s amazing, that’s amazing. I’m going to have to check those out.
Rebecca:
The tunnels of Oklahoma. Who knew? Well, thank you so much for chatting with me about Ida Red. It was really good, I really enjoyed it and I’m proud that a fellow Okie made it happen.
John:
Hey, I appreciate it, thanks so much. And I’m always happy to talk to somebody else from Oklahoma.
Saban Films will release the action/crime/thriller Ida Red in Theaters, On Digital and On Demand on November 5, 2021.
