Movie Review: Black Snake Moan
May 1st, 2008 by admin
- Director: Craig Brewer
- Genre: Drama/Music
- Year: 2006
I know what you were all thinking when you saw that trailer. Man or woman…the comment I kept hearing over and over was: who knew that Christina Ricci could be so hot! This is the girl that used to play Wednesday in the Adams Family, but to say she has finally grown up would be unfair, the girl has been making controversial films for a while now, this is just the first one that seems to have hit the mainstream waters. If you have not watched them before here are a few Ricci flicks I would recommend: Pumpkin, Buffalo ’66, The Ice Storm, Monster and though I have not seen it, I hear Pecker is good too.
This movie was marketed to appeal to the perverts. Let’s be honest, the trailer shows off most of Christina’s flesh and only her cotton panties and confederate flag half shirt…the rest is all chains and for part of the time a blanket. They certainly got to -this- pervert, but I have to admit that I did not walk into this movie ONLY because she was gonna be in panties and running around half nakkid while chained, but this was also coming from Craig Brewer, director of Hustle and Flow, who certainly earned his credibility with that film. On top of that the early reviews were all coming out with flying colors, which clued me into the fact that this movie was not going to be the TnA film the trailer made it out to be, or the posters, or the ads, all which ran the tag line: Everything is hotter down south.
It was a clever way to get attention, I have to give them that, and given the topic, probably the only way they could get people to turn around and think them twice. A shallow film with gratuitous nudity this is not…I will tell you that right now so that you are not disappointed. Is there nudity? Yes. Is Christina Ricci hot in it? Dear goodness yes. But is there a plot? Yes! And this is where the surprise comes in. Twisted as the plot may seem, there is a really solid story behind all of this.
There are three main characters that the story focuses on. Lazarus (Samuel Jackson) is a man of faith, who finds himself wavering when his wife opts to cheat on him, with his brother of all people and then ends up deciding that she is going to spend the rest of her life with him. On the other end, we have Rae (Christina Ricci), a waifish southern belle with an itch for passion, one that she has learned to control with her current beau Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) who has just decided to join the National Guard and whom we see leaving in the opening scenes. Due to these two events, we see Lazarus and Rae’s world being turned upside down and their efforts to try to cope with the situation handed to them, reaching an inevitable intersection where Lazarus finds Rae, beaten and left for dead on a dirt road outside his country home. Meaning to help, Lazarus takes her in, learning about her little by little and suddenly letting the idea into his head that God placed her on his path, so he could save her.
For a movie that largely depends on two characters, and everybody else plays a much smaller role, this film is carried quite well. The acting is superb on all sides, if just slightly less on Timberlake’s end (however, not bad enough to really call it a flaw). The story is an interesting one, filled with controversy, sexuality, violence…but it is still a good one. It is a story that could have been told with a number of people and under a number of situations but which becomes that much more interesting given the one that they chose to portray, which I have to say will not be the easiest to watch for those that have a narrow point of view.
The acting on both Samuel and Christina’s end is amazing and the way they are able to play off each other certainly is part of the formula of why works so well and in the end is so touching. Give it a watch, please do not automatically dismiss this as a TnA movie with no point and no drive. I think that come the credits, you will find yourself happily surprised.
And I do not have to say it but yes, Christina does make the screen sizzle.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Notes: A lot of adult situations in this one, language, violence, drug usage, drinking, nudity and sexuality. Not at all a family film at all.