White River
InWhite River, Bob Hoskins (ofWho Framed Roger RabbitandMona Lisa) plays Brother Edgar, a con man in monastic garb, who pretends to be the spiritual leader of the Little Brothers of St. Mortimer, a Christian association devoted to blind youths. These boys supposedly make the brown and blue socks Edgar sells at assorted lumberjack and hog-calling festivals around Arkansas, accompanied by his illegal immigrant assistant, Morales (Antonio Banderas ofThe Mask of ZorroandSpy Kids). Their modest but comfortable scam is interrupted when they are hijacked by a young psychopath called the White River Kid (Wes Bentley ofAmerican Beauty) and his girlfriend Apple Lisa Weed (Kim Dickens ofHollow Man), who force Brother Edgar to drive them to Apple Lisa's home town to meet her parents. Before long, Edgar is reluctantly caught up in a web of political corruption and misguided good intentions as he hopes to redeem himself in the arms of a blind prostitute named Eva Nell (Ellen Barkin ofThe Big EasyandDrop Dead Gorgeous).White Riverwas adapted from a book and suffers from trying to squeeze too much of a novel into the tighter confines of a film, but the remarkable cast (which also includes Beau Bridges, Swoozie Kurtz, and Randy Travis) make the most of their outrageously comic Southern gothic characters.--Bret Fetzer