Saving a sinner down South

Rating: 7/10 (8 February 2010)

I decided to watch this because I enjoyed most films I've seen starring Christina Ricci or Samuel L. Jackson and this had them both. It is a rather unusual film about an blues singer who has recently been dumped by his wife trying to save a girl who he found badly beaten and half naked by the side of the road. He isn't trying to save her physically but spiritually as he learns that she will sleep with just about any boy who wants her and he believes the only place for sex is within a loving marriage. While she is unconscious he goes into town and gets medicine for her and hears what she is like from the boy who's name she mumbled. when she wakes up in a strange man's house she is understandable rather scared and even more so when she sees that he has chained her to a radiator. Over the days that follow she comes to trust him to the point that when he unchains her and takes her to hear him sing in a local bar she makes no attempt to flee. When her boyfriend who has just been medically discharged from the army returns it looks as though things might turn out tragically... I've tried to keep spoilers to a bare minimum so as not to ruin the story.
The acting from the two leads was excellent, they managed to make a rather unlikely situation seem believable. The plot did stretch believability a bit; would a preacher really not go straight to the police if he found out somebody had a young woman chained up in his house against her will? The fact that Ricci's character spends half the film wearing only a pair of knickers and a shirt that is little bigger than a bra might sound sleazy but it just serves to show her character's vulnerability. I wouldn't want to buy this film but it is worth watching if it is on television or perhaps renting if you are a fan of the two leading actors.