Black Snake Down...

Rating: 5/10 (23 March 2007)

Samuel L. Jackson was awesome again- reminded me of the days in where he really got into the gritty kernel of a performance instead of safely switching onto auto-pilot these days and being just another decent name-actor-for-hire. Christina Ricci reminded me a lot of Reese Witherspoon's character in "Freeway," and Justin Timberlakewell, he should just stick to singing because he has no business acting. S. Epatha Merkerson and Jackson had nice chemistry together and the cinematography was well done. There was one continuous shot for about three minutes that kept the film's momentum going. It was not overkilled like in some independent films these days and was only a third of the length of continuous opening shots as in "Boogie Nights" or "The Player." The dialogue wasn't memorable but neither was it bad and the nudity was not gratuitous enough to the point of offensiveness.
But this movie is very slow and loses steam after Jackson unchains Ricci after what seems to be an over-long first hour. From there, it's pretty much something that could be on Lifetime if they toned down the language and probably deleted the whole scene with Samuel's blues gig and Ricci's slutty dancing. The movie just really seemed like it went nowhere. The film begins with a bang (literally) and has its rising drama with Ricci having sex with an African-American and then getting ripped at a party when she has sex withsomeone. When Jackson takes her under his wing, the film begins to slow down but I was waiting for something raw or controversial to happen (like a sixty-year-old shagging a twentysomething of mixed races) or S. Epatha walking in on them when bringing some more cough medicine to Jackson or something. But it didn't. I didn't gasp when Timberlake returned (well, who would?) or when he found out his friend schtumpted Ricci. Actually, there wasn't any real suspense to the film and it was followed by an anti-climatic resolution and an ending that made you shake your head rather than scratching it.
There have been so many reviews on this site praising this film and I think that it is getting so much fanfare because of the embedded charms: Mr. Jackson's performance, the dialogue, the Southern setting, the image of the seventies exploitation films and possibly Ms. Ricci's body. Aside from that, Craig Brewer has made a decent follow-up to his first film, "Hustle & Flow," and his subject-matter seems to be patently subversive but always with depth. But there was just not enough material to make me go, "oooohhh" and "awwwww." The movie reminded me a little of 2000's forgettable indie, "The Gift," in where it was set in the South and it was interesting in spots, but ultimately it was a bore. I didn't necessarily want my $9.50 back but I definitely wanted my time and could have been doing other things than sitting through that for two hours.