WaffleMovies.com

In a rural Tennessee town, Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) and Rae (Christina Ricci) are two people who have lost what they truly care about.  Lazarus, an old blues guitarist who gave up music and found God, is dealing with his wife’s infidelity with someone close to him, and her subsequent moving out of the house. 

Meanwhile, Rae is heartbroken that her boyfriend, Ronnie (Justin Timberlake), has joined the army.  With Ronnie gone to boot camp, Rae, who had a reputation for being a promiscuous girl, reverts to her wild child behavior, which leads to one horrible night where she is left by the side of the road for dead after being mistreated by someone with ill intentions.   

When Lazarus finds the sickly, beaten girl near his farm, he takes her into his house, starts to care for her, and ties a chain around her waist to keep Rae from wandering off during her fever-induced delusions.  However, Lazarus decides he needs to cure Rae of more than the physical sickness she feels, so the chain stays on.  He wants to cure her of her wickedness!   

What’s going to happen when Rae is healthy enough to realize she has a chain wrapped around her waist?  Does she want to be cured?  Can she be cured?  What’s going to happen when other people find out?

Writer/director Craig Brewer (the guy who wrote and directed Hustle and Flow, which makes him the man who taught America that it’s hard out here for a pimp!) starts off with a movie that is a mock, absurd, farce of an exorcism, but, over the course of the entire film, Black Snake Moan moves towards being too serious. 

The movie starts off all fun and ridiculous.  C’mon, he has chained up a hot little girl wearing nothing but a cutoff t-shirt and white underpants!  That’s either a horror movie, a dark comedy or a porno, and Brewer is right to get the most comedy out of the situation you can.  He gives us fantastically oddball behavior, dialogue and situations that give the audience a chance to laugh along with actors on screen because these events are silly, but somehow feel right for a movie called Black Snake Moan. 

Furthermore, Brewer provides a great vibe to the movie, so you can feel the humidity and heat of the Deep South, and almost start to sweat as you see the characters in the stifling, dead air.  Black Snake Moan is full of cool blues music that reaches down into your soul to get your attention (title taken from the name of a song by 1920’s blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson, who is not the same blues man we see in the movie, that is Son House), and Brewer has the ability to make those attacks of wickedness rising up in Rae have the same tense and dangerous effect as the shark from Jaws rising out of the water.  However, all of the sudden the movie gets all touchy feely as we learn why she is the way she is and he shares his feelings of how he got to where he is. Does Brewer want to be the next Tyler Perry?      

Jackson and Ricci make the most of it as we see Jackson calling for the power from God like a preacher, and wearing the role of weathered, worldly wise elder like a comfortable pair of blue jeans.  He fills Lazarus with caution, anger at what he has lost and the pure soul of a hero who wants to do something good with no gain or benefit.  Meanwhile, Ricci is just as entertaining and campy as she reacts with horror to the chain around her waist, makes Rae humorously fight with Lazarus like a petulant child, and makes the young lady writhe in pain and lust in B-movie style as the wickedness rises up in her soul, and underpants.  Brewer should have taken more advantage of the chemistry between the two actors and given us more scenes where we see the battle of wills and personalities.  

Sadly, Brewer and the movie get off track as he searches for an ending.  Black Snake Moan loses energy and momentum as Lazarus starts to become Dr. Phil trying to learn about the cause of Rae’s behavior, and the movie takes a more serious approach to the farcical situation.  Black Snake Moan becomes too nice and realistic, after drawing in the audience earlier with something more adventurous and funny.  You almost feel guilty for laughing earlier.   

You can still go to Black Snake Moan and enjoy it, but it could have been more. 

2 ½ Waffles (Out Of 4)   

Black Snake Moan is rated R for strong sexual content, language, some violence, nudity, and drug use. 

Copyright 2007 - WaffleMovies.com

Click here to buy posters!