More than just sexy exploitation junk

Rating: 7/10 (30 November 2008)

I've got to admit, I rented this for less than noble reasons, perhaps even prurient ones. Christina Ricci running around near-naked for the whole film? That's something I gotta see.
OK, enough of the dirty old man act. Except that that's what the film is aiming at, isn't it? The poster -- the ads -- the first scene -- this is going to be an exploitation film, and an over the top one at that, with nubile, waifish nymphomaniac Rae (Ricci) ending up bloodied and beaten on farmer and ex-bluesman Lazarus' (Samuel L Jackson) doorstep, just at the moment when Jackson seems about ready to go 'round the bend.
So Lazarus, after nursing the physically sick Rae back to health over a couple of days does what any rural farmer in the south would do with a woman half his age and of another race -- he chains her to a radiator in some odd misguided effort to cleanse her of "evil spirits" or some such nonsense; it's never spelled out very explicitly just what Lazarus believes, or doesn't believe, he can do.
There's plenty of exploitive, trashy fun to be had here; our heroine does indeed run around in next to nothing for nearly the whole film, and Jackson's tortured musician Lazarus embodies a whole lot of fun southern black stereotypes -- and I do mean fun; this is certainly a film that tries to avoid racism at all costs. If anything, it's saying that sure, blacks and white are a little different -- they're just messed up in different ways, and we'd best try to understand that, because we're all in it together. They certainly are in director Craig Brewer's vision of the mid-south -- this small town has to be the best-integrated place in America.
But never mind all that. The film moves, the dialogue is mostly crisp, the acting (especially, and surprisingly, by Justin Timberlake as Ricci's rather confused boyfriend Ronnie) is solid. The biggest problem it has is that it doesn't know whether to continue down the sordid route, or attempt a little morality play and make nice at the end. Unfortunately it goes the latter route, but there was enough realistic local color and heart to the whole thing that I still found myself enjoying it. Watched on DVD.