If a young lady goes missing and foul play is expected, Aussie Private Detective Harry Kenmare can find her. He will almost certainly try to sleep with her too.

To all disillusioned city-dwellers dreaming about abandoning their metropolitan hustle for a wound-down existence out in the desert, to all of you who are so over L.A., read Jail Weddings’ front man Gabriel Hart’s new chapbook Nothing To See Here before pulling the trigger on your move.

Promised Land isn’t for the squeamish. Trevino abandons, with confidence, any effort to deliver sympathetic or relatable characters to his audience. As a committed war film it sets itself aside in tone and content from the solipsistic, slice-of-life narratives one tends to encounter so often at short film festivals. By avoiding disingenuous notions of artificial heroism, simplistic portrayals of wartime morality and avoiding the clichéd implication that all post 9/11-era U.S. service members are blind imperialist thugs aimed at securing oil or whatever, Promised Land assuredly distinguishes itself further.