Buried between the larger-than-life stories about the crime that shaped twentieth century North America is a lesser-known story of the Little Lorraine fisherman who got involved in international cocaine smuggling. Though details are difficult to find, there exists a Canadian diddy by Adam Baldwin called “Lighthouse in Little Lorraine” about some former miners getting caught up after taking a job with the narrator’s mysterious Uncle Huey. The music video for the narrative track was directed by Andy Hines which he eventually pivoted into a proof-of-concept for what is now his debut feature film, Little Lorraine.

Little Lorraine takes place in the titular town following a small gang of miners who are left without work after a collapse takes some of their colleagues and leaves their mine unusable. Faced with the decision of taking a small payout and leaving their homes or looking for work elsewhere, Jimmy (Stephen Amell) considers a cryptic offer from his mysterious Uncle Huey (Stephen McHattie) who has rocked back into town with a lobster fishing boat. With few options and a hard-to-shake rage against their union, Jimmy and his pals board Huey’s ship for a modest life of lobster catching. But things with his estranged flakey uncle aren’t as simple as they seem and the gang is quickly initiated into the world of international drug smuggling, something for which there’s no easy way out.

Hines’s tale of small-town men being thrust into the world of crime will feel familiar to crime drama fans who will expect the usual beats of a rapid rise followed by a paranoia led fall. Little Lorraine isn’t all-the-way surprising in its story beats, but it doesn’t need to be as it applied the crime drama formula to a fresh locale intent on exploring the complexities of maritime men in the 1980s. While its cohorts are no doubt crime dramas, it also feels a compelling companion to this year’s 28 Years Later as it studies manhood in an otherwise simple life with a larger-than-life conflict looming overhead.

The stellar cast of not just Amell and McHattie, but Matt Walsh, Rhys Darby, Sean Astin, also includes the acting debut of J Balvin as the fish-out-of-water Interpol agent dropped into a small town. Though I so badly wished for his character to be more consequential beyond just shaking up Huey and the gang, he successfully plays the man from another world dropped into the simple life almost like the characters of In Bruges but with far less subtext about purgatory.

Little Lorraine is as unassuming as the wives of miners and quickly grows into a worthy crime drama about how fast life comes at you and the ills of paranoia and distrust so easily bringing calamity in a high-stakes environment. Though its emotional climax happens too quickly, it sets off a brutal finale focused on what it means to stand together as a town. For all the fraught and direct dialogue that could have been skipped, and all the times you beg for Darby or Walsh to have had more to do to build up to the larger moments, Little Lorraine is still a successful crime drama that stands firmly as a love letter to small town maritime Canada.  Like the song says, “there’s a goldmine out on the ocean and a lighthouse in Little Lorraine.”

Little Lorraine played the Toronto International Film Festival. It was sold to Vaneast Pictures and release details are tbd.

In lieu of a trailer, enjoy the music video.