Wednesday In Chains

Rating: 6/10 (5 December 2009)

First off, Christina Ricci is gorgeous; whether she's a chubby, busty brunette or a stick-thin, dirty blonde as she is here. She's always had enormous eyes and, now her face has gone so thin, they look even bigger.
She plays a loose young girl called Rae in this. In the old days, she would've been called a nymphomaniac. In these days of politically-correct, blameless labels, she'd be called a sex addict. Others would call her the village bike (everyone's had a ride!).
Samuel L. Jackson plays a lonely man who sees Ricci's wicked, wicked ways and decides to chain her up in his house to "save" her.
Jackson usually plays himself in every movie he's in, but here, he at least seems to be making half an effort to do something different (although his character has a lot of the fire and brimstone of his Pulp Fiction Jules character in him.) The scenes where Ricci gets "attacks" of sluttishness are unintentionally hilarious. This woman literally has penis withdrawal symptoms.
The story is kind of an update of the Jesus and Mary Magdalene story with chains and blues music. We're left in no doubt of the biblical origins of the story as the writer calls Jackson's character Lazarus, the name of the man Jesus brought back from the dead, just as Jackson's character hopes to enact a spiritual resurrection in the girl.
There is also an interesting dynamic between Ricci and Jackson, demonstrating the Stockholm Syndrome when a hostage shows paradoxical signs of loyalty to their captor.
Justin Timberlake is Ricci's hothead soldier boyfriend and the film kicks off with a sex scene between him and Ricci (I can only imagine this is why Ricci would want to do the film as she spends most of the time being naked and/or abused in some way.) It's a strange film, you could say deliberately quirky, but that's a good thing. You can only see so many action scenes and CGI monsters before your brain switches off.