Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake
DRAMA
Black Snake Moan will indeed have you moaning, "Please, make it stop!" Written and directed by Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow), this has to be the silliest pseudo-serious movie in years. Ricci, sashaying about like Daisy Duke in micro cutoff jeans and tube tops, is the town trollop in a hick burg in Tennessee. After her beau (Timberlake) departs for the Army, she starts drinking and drugging prodigiously and jumping anything in pants. But deep down, don't ya know, she's hurting something powerful. Jackson, an ex-blues man turned farmer who has recently been dumped by his own wife, decides he's going to reform Ricci. How? He chains her half-naked to a radiator in his house, reads to her from the Bible and lectures her on her evil ways. The idea seems to be that these two damaged people can eventually help each other to heal. This is hooey of the highest order and it doesn't help that Ricci overacts ludicrously, doing a fair approximation of Betty Boop in heat. Moan's blues-heavy soundtrack is terrific, but music alone does not a movie make. (R)
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