THE STORY – Little Lorraine, a North Atlantic seaside town with a population of 60, becomes embroiled in an international cocaine smuggling operation under the noses of multiple governments, distributed in coffins through a network of funeral homes.
THE CAST – Stephen Amell, Sean Astin, Joshua Close, Steve Lund, Stephen McHattie, & J Balvin
THE TEAM – Andy Hines (Director/Writer) & Adam Baldwin (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 115 Minutes
In its haunting opening minutes, “Little Lorraine” takes us to the rugged cliffs and salt-sprayed fishing villages of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Grainy archival footage rolls over the credits, showing coal-streaked miners at work, with a camaraderie forged in the darkness beneath the sea. A voiceover tells us what we’re seeing: a brotherhood built over generations, families raised on coal pay, and a region once dubbed “the Pittsburgh of Canada.” But all of it – the mines, the jobs, the certainty – is about to collapse. And so begins a tale, inspired by true events, of survival, temptation, and ruin in a town blindsided by change.
Set in 1986 and directed by Grammy-nominated music video director Andy Hines, “Little Lorraine” takes its name from a small village on Cape Breton Island and the 2022 Adam Baldwin song that first mythologized this true story. Hines, who also directed the song’s video, uses it as both inspiration and blueprint. His leap into feature filmmaking is confident, even if the execution isn’t always as seamless as the pitch.
The film’s protagonist, Jimmy (Stephen Amell), is introduced as a blue-collar everyman, waking before dawn, heading to the undersea mine with his two best friends Tommy (Joshua Close) and Jake (Steve Lund), cigarette in hand, boots heavy with dirt. A sharp score, tinged with traditional Maritimes music, elevates the mood just before a terrifying mining explosion snatches away the lives of ten men, turning camaraderie into mourning in seconds. There’s no time to breathe. The funeral comes fast, and so does the reappearance of a ghost from the past: Jimmy’s great-uncle Huey (played with disquieting charm and menace by Stephen McHattie).
Huey – a gambler, a sinner (according to Sean Astin’s small but stirring role as the village priest), and a man many believed long dead – offers Jimmy a way out: work on his lobster fishing boat. With the mine shuttered and jobs gone, Jimmy has little choice. He has a wife and two kids, one in a wheelchair. A scene where his son asks for a pair of Jordans for his birthday makes it clear that coal doesn’t allow Jimmy to provide everything his family deserves. Jimmy ropes in Tommy and Jake to join him, believing they’ll really be hauling lobster traps. Instead, Huey’s “fishing business” turns out to involve smuggling bundles of cocaine and stashing them into caskets delivered by a shady funeral director. Huey’s nefarious game could end up sinking more than his little boat.
This is where “Little Lorraine” shifts from gritty realism to a creeping, pressure-cooker crime drama. With Interpol sniffing around – led by Colombian reggaeton star J Balvin in his first live-action feature — the film peels back the layers of Cape Breton’s real-life drug crisis. Between 1986 and 1991, over 100 tonnes of hash and cocaine were smuggled through the island, reaching as far as Los Angeles. That historical weight hangs heavy over the film’s second half.
The storytelling occasionally stumbles. One out-of-place montage explaining the cocaine epidemic feels like a PSA, underestimating the audience’s ability to connect the dots. Dream sequences where Jimmy envisions himself dead, drifting in a coffin at sea, feel heavy-handed, as we already feel the noose of guilt tightening around his neck. And Jimmy’s descent into alcoholism is touched on but never fully explored, making his outbursts toward his wife more jarring than justified.
Still, the performances anchor the chaos. Amell’s Jimmy is stoic, stubborn, and ultimately self-destructive. McHattie’s Huey believes, with unsettling conviction, that he’s saving these men, not ruining them. That delusion makes him all the more dangerous. Tommy’s guilt drives him to confession. Jake, once the comic relief, starts to fray under the weight of the lies. The tension builds, not from gunfights or betrayals, but from the slow, smothering realization that they may not escape clean.
As the operation escalates, so does the paranoia. The money is good, but it’s dirty. And soon, Jimmy’s moral compass shatters. He drinks. He lashes out. He blames his wife for his choices. Everything – his friendships, his family, his soul – starts to erode. There’s no catharsis, no neat ending. Just consequences.
And that’s what makes “Little Lorraine” stand out, even if it doesn’t reinvent the crime drama wheel. It doesn’t glamorize the drug trade or paint these men as heroes. It understands that this story – born from a song, a village, and a history of generational labor – is about choices made when the world stops offering you any. By the end, we aren’t left with justice, just the ache of inevitability. A village clings to faith. Families mourn what might have been. It’s a story of brotherhood and betrayal, of faith and fallout. And, like Cape Breton itself, it’s a story both hardened by the past and haunted by it.
