Chain chain chain ...

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2007)

SPOILERS ...like I could ... For Me - One of those movies you can't measure against others of the same ilk because ... it's its very own ilk, all by itself alone. Craig Brewer seems to be blessing those who love film ... that way ... (Hustle and Flow) and now BSM (haven't seen his earlier, but I will!).
Posters and hype seemed to pitch this work as a southern/trashy throwback to the exploitation (sexploitation) guilty/sleaze of the 60s and 70s - only my take because I remember (age alert!) those drive-in draws. Black man with a "half naked" chained white sexpot/nympho born of an worthless Mom and relentlessly abused by Mom's boyfriend ... bad promo but I really don't think they knew what to do with it. Not their usual drummer. Then again, I don't know how to pitch this film ... Now, get ready for something really different? ... not that I have any expertise in that field.
What's it about? That would be the purpose of a review, right? ... to create a summary of a given film and a rating of some kind? Okay, it's about two very different people that are very much alike, infested with a maelstrom of personal demons who shouldn't have crossed paths but do. Both are on very different self destructive agendas, one ready to run to the edge and over, the other ready to do the same but also toying with the idea of redemption. Their crossing of paths interrupts both their vectors and creates the raw story that unfolds.
But not without "The Chain!" That chain pandered in the posters and trailers, the one tossing up controversy and raising eyebrows, that chain that was ...
... brilliant IMHO. The only way the post-chain drama could have unfolded was to, some way, physically anchor the two together until they "meshed" (nothing else in life would have forced them to abide each other) so the rest could happen. When the physical chain is finally removed, its physical restriction has allowed the emotional, physiological and spiritual chain to bind them in a way a real chain could not.
Then the synergy kicks in ... greater than the sum of its parts. Two lost souls, buddied up on the roller coaster to possible oblivion ... and then ...
... Craig Brewer will tell you the rest.
We're all flawed, you, me and everyone else. Somehow we find a way ... maybe.
A word about Christina Ricci in this film ... she positively and absolutely nailed 10 out of 10 this character. Jaw dropping. Raw, visceral ... really scary good. Out of the ballpark. This is equal to, if it doesn't better, Charlize Theron's "Monster" which, by the way, Christina Ricci was in as well.
Craig dropped some archival footage into the movie ... pay attention ... he's talking to you about what he's doing here.
More than a word about Samuel Jackson ... I'm sorry, I think SJ is one of cinema's most overlooked and un-rewarded actors in history and I don't understand that. His palette of characters he can become is apparently limitless (have you seen "The Caveman's Valentine"?). He turned in an Oscar performance here, which he won't receive, of course. Like all the other Oscar level deliveries he's made but didn't collect. SJ created a character, gave it flesh and blood and soul and life and made it real ... raw, solid, dead on perfect. This is probably my favorite role of his he's taken and owned completely.
It might behoove you to remember this is closer to a fable or fairy tale than your normal kind of narrative film.
Oh, yeah ... it doesn't hurt if you're a fan of the Blues.
In from left field and out of the ball park.