Creative story outdone by cheap thrills

Rating: 5/10 (28 June 2007)

A sex addicted Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson withissues; and a complete ensemble cast where each character comes with their very own unique problems creates this interesting but just short of "good" film. This is the story of a lonely god fearing Lazarus who tries to turn Rae's life around by chaining her up in his house and breaking her of her urges.
I felt this movie had great potential and basis, I think the idea and basic story are really good and could have gone many beautiful places, but I thought they went the cheap route and drug people in to the theater with numerous sex scenes and a naked Christina Ricci. I believe the idea for this movie was really creative and new, but I think it was executed poorly.
Christina and Samuel did pretty well, but I don't think Ricci's accent was very well done, as a matter of fact I think she's done it before and I didn't like it then either, she will never outlive Wednesday for me. However I think both of them probably only took these roles because it gave them a chance to sing, actors like that sort of crap. Jackson was very interesting as an older man; not playing someone with a gun where every other word has four letters and starts with an F is very refreshing. Please don't confuse this at all with Snakes on a Plane, it has almost NOTHING to do with snakes and there is very little gun action, this one was actually respectable.
Which brings we to another point that I think there was a bit too much singing in the movie. I probably should have paid a bit more attention to the words they were singing but I just got distracted. The songs were pretty and showed us a lot about Jackson's character but slowed down the film at parts.
There were some really great parts in this film, the relationship between Lazarus and Angela was touching, and I thought the conversation Laz had with the young boy was really cute, but the sexual nature of this film over powered the grass roots feel I felt this movie could have portrayed quiet well.
Overall, I wouldn't want to watch this again. The beginning middle and end had a depressing cloud hanging over it that was never really resolved and I don't like movies that are depressing the whole time, it just drags me down. If you are fans of Jackson, Ricci or even Justin Timberlake you will probably enjoy this movie more than I, so give it a chance. It does have a really interesting and neat title!