It's always good to see an actor who made such an impression as a youngster - a BAFTA best actor award - coming good as an adult.

Christian Bale graduated from a fresh-faced kiddiwink in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun to American Psycho and now the graphite cowl of Batman himself.

Now Jamie Bell looks set for the same sort of success after his turn as the hardworking-but-slightly-dim eldest son of Dermot Mulroney's hog farmer in this disturbing drama.

All's well (sort of) at the home of John Munn (Mulroney). Although traumatised by the death of his wife, he's making ends meet as a farmer and taxidermist (?) in America's humid southern wetlands.

He's helped by Chris (Bell), an industrious but wayward youth whose brushes with the law both worry and rather appeal to his dad's sense of anti-authority.

His younger brother Tim (Alan) is more of a problem. Weak and sickly thanks to his habit of supping from paint tins, he's not much use around the remote farmstead.

Then, out of the blue, Munn's ex-jailbird brother Deel (Lucas) appears, shifting the balance and exuding a palpable sense of danger with his manipulation of the young Chris.

In the Munn family, writer and director David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls) has created an utterly believable, blue collar family unit.

Basically decent and honest, they grind out an existence without dazzling quips or articulate flights of fancy. You really feel they might exist. Imagine the Waltons with a reality check.

And it's this grounding in reality that gives this sweat-drenched yarn its dramatic foundation - nobody's particularly smart and their relative naivete is their undoing.

Lucas is a splendid villain - a demented cocktail of self-pity, animal cunning and extreme violence - while the rest of the cast elicit concern as his wayward targets.

The plot might lose its way towards the end…but there's enough to keep you in a cold sweat (despite the heat).

Tim Evans