In Cold Light comes to us from a writer who hasn’t made anything else of note, and a director here making his English-language feature debut. Easily the biggest name here is Helen Hunt, but she phones in what’s basically an extended cameo that could’ve been played at least as well by pretty much anyone else. Though we’ve also got Troy Kotsur, a recent Best Actor winner who still hasn’t become a household name quite yet. Then there’s Maika Monroe starring and exec-producing… and that’s it.

Little wonder the film came and went without much of anyone noticing. Also, because the film isn’t very good.

Monroe plays Ava Bly, coming in fresh off a two-year prison stint for assault and drug dealing. Jesse Irving plays Tom Bly, Ava’s twin brother and partner in crime. I might add that Tom has a loving girlfriend (Donna, played by Jessica Abruzzese) and an infant daughter, plus he’s better at fronting as a legit businessman. Their father is Will Bly (Kotsur), who’s still grieving for his dead wife, bitter that his career in bull-riding is long since over, and he’s an asshole taking all that negativity out on his daughter.

Ava’s family is no help in getting her life on straight, so she tries to reclaim her independence the only way she knows how: By getting back into selling illicit drugs. That all goes south when Tom is suddenly and inexplicably shot by a crooked cop and his idiot son (respectively played by Allan Hawco and Noah Parker). Ava somehow survives and escapes the attempted double homicide, and her would-be killer claims that Ava killed her brother.

So now Ava can’t go to any hospital, she can’t go to the police, and literally nobody — not even her own family! — will take her side or believe her story. This in turn means that we’ve got a protagonist with a checkered past running to everyone she knows, taking whatever help she can, burning every last bridge she’s got, until she finally has to stand and fight.

The thing is, I’ve seen this movie before: Night Always Comes. And it sucked. On the other hand, that movie was about a woman struggling to pay the rent. This movie is about a woman on the run from the cop who genuinely is out to kill her. The stakes are that much higher, which in turn makes it more compelling and far more justifiable for Ava to go to the extreme lengths that she does.

But that still didn’t stop me from screaming “Go to your lawyer!” at the screen. Seriously, the ex-convict didn’t have a defense attorney she could’ve gone to for protection from a corrupt cop?!

While the premise makes for a neat little crime thriller romp, the plot is woefully lackluster and miserable to sit through. From start to finish, we’re stuck watching the universe shit on our protagonist with setback after suffering. And the protagonist is too powerless to plausibly do anything about it. What’s worse, the plot is riddled with holes and contrivances, leading up to a bullshit final reveal and a downer ending. To say nothing of the useless flashbacks.

Oh, and did I mention the visuals? Because the film is loaded with nauseating shaky-cam and laughably pretentious sequences. (That laser tag arena chase and the inexplicable fireworks come to mind.)

There’s not much else to say about In Cold Light. There are so few characters and there’s so little plot in this 100-minute movie, yet it’s miserable enough to feel three times as long. This is supposed to be a film about discovering agency and reclaiming independence, but I can’t remember the last time I saw those themes expressed in such cynical and depressing terms. Sure, Monroe and Kotsur are solid, but they’ve each done better work elsewhere. And as for Helen Hunt, I hope she got a decent paycheck for what little she did here.

I appreciate the effort, but nobody behind the camera was equal to the task of delivering on this story to its full potential. It certainly doesn’t help that pretty much everything this movie tried to do, Tuner did far and away better only a few months later. That’s a movie worth your time and money. In Cold Light? Not recommended.