Everett on the big screen in thriller ‘7 Minutes’

Seeing famous Everett locales like Totem Family Diner and Rucker Mansion on the big screen can be a bit distracting. At least I found it to be.

But “7 Minutes,” the movie written and directed by Jay Martin and filmed largely in Snohomish County, is strong enough that by the end local audiences will stop noticing the Everett cop cars racing by downtown buildings.

Well, almost.

“7 Minutes” begins with a pair of brothers, Sam and Mike, and friend, Owen, donning featureless white plastic masks and busting into a small office, guns drawn. They’re there to score some loot, but the film has some storytelling to do before anything is resolved.

The clock starts ticking. The seven minutes in “7 Minutes” refers to the response time of the cops after the call goes out of a robbery. Eight minutes and they’re cooked, and since “Don’t get caught” is the No. 1 rule of Owen’s father (Kris Kristofferson growling all the way), things need to go smoothly.

Martin uses this timing device to intersperse in a number of flashbacks, telling the story of half a dozen characters and how this fateful moment came about — a mixture of paranoia, hubris and desperation.

There’s Sam, played capably by Aussie actor Luke Mitchell (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and his pregnant girlfriend, Kate (Leven Rambin). They want out of “this town,” but Sam can’t seem to get things right. The former high school football stud is laid off and starts dealing drugs with his longtime buddy Owen (Zane Holtz). Things descend quickly when he tries to up the ante and gets the three of them twisted up with a dangerous drug lord, Doug.

Sam’s brother, Mike, played effortlessly by Jason Ritter, is a husband and father in name only. He spearheads the drug deal gone wrong and has no problem going home from the Amber Lite Tavern with a less-than-reputable woman of Everett — and, yes the movie makes it clear that “this town” is Everett.

The movie continues to swirl in backstory flashbacks until settling into a tense standoff inside the cramped office. The ending is a bit unbelievable and makes Everett cops look less than capable, but overall Martin ties in a number of twists that keep viewers guessing over an efficient 84 minutes.

The cast, which also includes Kevin Gage (best known as the incompetent Waingro from “Heat”) as an enterprising heavy and Brandon Hardesty as a love-struck cop that gets in over his head, is solid.

For those with ties to Snohomish County, though, the star of “7 Minutes” is Everett and Snohomish County in all its “evocatively desolate” glory, as Frank Scheck put it in a Hollywood Reporter review of the film last month. Mostly filmed in a number of locations over a month in May 2013, “7 Minutes” will leave some viewers a little distracted. The drug deal goes down at Rucker Mansion, Kate works night shift at Totem Family Diner and the SWAT team arrives — after seven minutes — screeching to a stop in front of Karl’s Bakery on Wetmore. A Scuttlebutt six pack makes an appearance and the boys hatch their plan playing pool in the aforementioned Amber Lite Tavern.

I was reminiscent of my time covering the football scenes at Haller Middle School in Arlington. Though a tiny portion of the film, the football scenes are decidedly local, with Sam donning a “Cascade” uniform against a recognizable Everett Seagulls foe. It was interesting to see how more than 10 hours of filming in the middle of the night turned into less than two minutes on the screen.

Like the other local extras that were used in the movie, though, I’m sure the high school football players and fans in the stands that night feel it was worth the effort.

“7 Minutes” (3 stars)

Indebted to a psychopathic drug lord, three desperate young men make a plan to commit a brazen robbery. What begins as a simple plan — “in and out in seven minutes” — devolves into a life-or-death standoff. The cast is strong and the twist and turns will keep viewers guessing. The Everett and Snohomish County locales will have local audiences a bit distracted.

Rating: Not rated; probably R for language, violence, nudity, subject matter and drug use

Showing: Grand Illusion theater; also available On Demand and iTunes

More online

For a look at some of the scenes in “7 Minutes” with Everett and Snohomish County locales and what other reviewers are saying about the film, visit www.heraldnet.com/movies.