'Luderdale' Review: Smooth 80s Crime Drama is an Intriguing Slow Burner
- Romey Norton
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
By Romey Norton - November 7, 2025
In Luderdale, writer-director Thom Mills takes audiences to a strange, sun-bleached purgatory inside a decaying beachfront hotel in 1980s Fort Lauderdale, where the palm trees sway, but no one dares to step outside. Beneath its sun-drenched veneer, this mystery-thriller is filled with paranoia, nostalgia, and a creeping sense of doom. It’s a low-key, slow-burning chamber piece that feels as influenced by the neon-streaked crime dramas of the 1980s.
The setup is elegantly simple: two cousins, Tommy (Christian Shupe) and Nicky (Austin Valli), are hiding out from the mob in a shuttered seaside hotel, trying to stay invisible while the world outside moves on. When a stranger named Hutch (John Gargan) arrives, full of half-truths, the balance shifts. What unfolds is not a conventional gangster story but an intimate, pressure-cooker mystery. Each character carries secrets, and as those secrets surface, the hotel becomes a crucible for guilt, loyalty, and the illusion of safety.
The actors have great chemistry, making the film worth watching. Especially towards the end, with some strong male dominance back and forth from the leads. Gargan anchors the film with a quietly magnetic performance as Hutch. Valli’s Nicky is his opposite, being hot-headed and restless. Christian Shupe’s Tommy is the wild card, equal parts charm and menace. Ayden Skye adds a haunting and captivating presence as Candy, a mysterious young woman who drifts through the corridors like a ghost. And whilst they're all entertaining and completely committed to their roles, something is missing - a sinister and/or harshness expected from mob gangsters. They're all likable in a Miami Vice type of way. At times, things seem happy and comfortable, which steers away from the typical crime-thriller genre,
Visually, Luderdale is a well-polished indie film. The film’s faded Floridian aesthetic, all burnt oranges and washed-out blues, captures the glamour and rot of a bygone era. There’s good use of props, such as cars and bikes, to take you back to the 80s. A great use of the location, from the hotel to the beach, but it might have helped the paranoia and intensity grow if the film had stuck to one location, such as one room in the hotel. The sea views give a sense of freedom, which these characters don't truly have - I suppose this works as a good juxtaposition.
Where Luderdale stumbles is in pacing. Its deliberate rhythm occasionally drifts into sluggishness, and some of the midsection dialogue scenes stretch longer than they need to. So viewers might find themselves disengaging. But keep going, as the ending might just surprise you.
By the time the film reaches its twisting, blood-tinged finale, Luderdale has become something more than a crime story. It’s a meditation on identity and survival, about the lies people tell to stay alive and the truths that finally drag them under.
A moody, sun-damaged noir with heart, Luderdale may not reinvent the genre, but it’s still an intriguing and entertaining watch. For those who love old-school crime dramas, this film might just be your new favourite.
Lauderdale was released on digital platforms in the US on October 21, also available on DVD.
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