Movie Reviews this week looks at the drama Black Snake Moan. I must say despite the bad reviews I have heard, I loved this movie. There were so many things to like, the idyllic country side, the superb performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci (what a performance by her, there I was seeing the sweet girl in Casper and the Addam's family giving a performance like this). The ensemble cast were all good, especially John Coltrane Jr. as the warm hearted preacher, friend to Samuel L. Jackson Lazarus character, and regardless of what some of the reviews I have heard say, Justin Timberlake gave a noteworthy performance as the angst ridden boyfriend of the local hussy (Ricci).
And of course there is the music, apparently Samuel L. Jackson played all the songs himself, and some have said he could retire from the movie business and take up an alternative career as a blues singer.
The movie was one of redemption, I heard some people got up and left the theatre because a petite white female is chained up by a black old man, I have to wonder if there were watching the same movie, race was never the issue, the only time I can say racial stereotypes were touched on, was when Samuel L. Jackson asks in unbelief if Rae (Ricci) can't cook.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus (called Laz) a bible believing retired blues singer, who gave up his music for marital happiness and children with his wife, tending his farm in Tennessee, but whose wife has just left him for a younger model, who happens to be his brother, so Laz is now living the blues, ashamed by how the local community sees him, he hides out in his farm, drinking moonshine, while drinking his problems away, Rae unceremoniously gets dumped in his farm after a house party of booze, sex and drugs. He takes her into to his home to tend to her wounds, while on his way to town to get her some medicine he finds out she is the local tramp who will sleep with anybody, apparently she has a sickness that is only satiated with sex, on returning he finds her sprawling all over the place still recovering from her booze and pill ridden escapade, seeing that she needs help, he does it in the most unconventional of ways by chaining her to his radiator, with the help of a forty foot chain.
Despite what the posters and trailers may indicate Black Snake Moan is not a sadomasochism or sexually exploitative movie, you realize after a while that Rae is looking for a father figure, and Laz is looking for a daughter he never had, the movie is a beautiful tale of redemption found in each other from two opposites. I have never seen anything like this before, no doubt the director Craig Brewer aimed to turn a few heads with some of the storyline, but the overall effect of the movie is a brilliant piece of cinema, and the score by Samuel L. Jackson just about completes this lovely movie.
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