Midnight in the Switchgrass

For years Randall Emmett produced action films by the dozen for the home market, with the odd prestige title along the way such as 'The Irishman'. 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' is his first film as a director, a 2021 crime thriller loosely inspired by the case of Robert Ben Rhoades, the long-haul trucker known as the Truck Stop Killer, with the story moved from Texas to Florida.

Byron Crawford, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, has spent years chasing a man who takes young women from gas stations and rest stops. His case runs into that of Rebecca Lombardo and Karl Helter, two FBI agents about to bring down a sex trafficking ring, who realise their investigation has crossed the path of a serial killer.

The three of them join forces. The film doesn't play a guessing game about who's responsible: it introduces Peter Hillborough, a family man with a seemingly ordinary life, early on. The tension lies elsewhere, in whether the agents will get there before another girl goes missing.

Emile Hirsch plays Crawford, Megan Fox and Bruce Willis are the federal agents and Lukas Haas is Hillborough. The cast also includes Colson Baker, better known as Machine Gun Kelly, Sistine Rose Stallone, Caitlin Carmichael, Michael Beach and Lydia Hull, who's also one of the producers. Alan Horsnail wrote the screenplay. Shooting began in March 2020 in San Juan and Dorado, Puerto Rico, and the pandemic stopped it twice, so the last stretch was filmed on a ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Fox and Baker's relationship began during the shoot.

Made for around $15 million, according to Deadline, it premiered at the Gasparilla International Film Festival in Tampa in June 2021 before Lionsgate released it in a handful of US cinemas and on demand on 23 July. It reached the UK on 13 August 2021 with a 15 certificate. Critics were merciless (24 out of 100 on Metacritic) and Fox was nominated for the Razzie for Worst Actress. The Razzies had also created a category just for Willis's films that year, and withdrew it when his family announced he had aphasia.

• Crime
• Mystery
• Thriller