New Orleans past is never past.

In the Electric Mist

In the Electric Mist is an adaptation of James Lee Burke’s 1993 novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. The story deals with Cajun detective, Dave Robicheaux’s investigation of a murder when a body is discovered in a Louisiana swamp following a Gulf Coast storm. But the murder is only one mystery Robicheaux must solve, the other is why he keeps seeing and hearing from the apparitions of Confederate soldiers.

The film starts Tommy Lee Jones as Robicheaux, and is not an action oriented P.I. film but the kind of slowly unraveling mystery typical of other recent Jones films such as his previous effort, In the Valley of Elah.

The last time Robicheaux made it to the big screen was more than a dozen years ago, played by Alec Baldwin in the box office disaster Heaven’s Prisoners, which lost 4 times as much money as it made.

So, why revive this series now? I believe the film itself holds the key to that mystery. The film changes the tropical storm which is responsible for uncovering the long submerged body to Hurricane Katrina – which is logical given the location. But I suspect there is more to it than that. The film itself is kind of like metafiction, because there is a film taking place within this movie, a Civil War film (which supplies a possible explanation for the Confederate soldiers Robicheaux keeps seeing) but is also mentioned as bringing much needed income to the area - “we’re dropping close to 40 million dollars into Iberia Parish”, says one of the characters. This, I believe, is the smoking gun behind reviving this 16 year old novel.

The film stars the usual New Orleans boosters like Ned Beatty and John Goodman, even bluesman Buddy Guy in a small role. It has a lot of heart but lacks punch, coming across as a slapdash Big Easy for Katrina relief. Which isn’t such a bad thing; if you like the genre, it just might be worth your time.