Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer, 2006)

What's it about? God-fearing blues musician Lazarus (Samuel L Jackson) finds the town nymphomaniac Rae (Christina Ricci) lying injured at the side of the road in her underwear. Does he ring the hospital or cops? No, he brings her to his house and chains her to his radiator in an attempt to cure her of her wicked ways. As you do.

Is it any good? Not really. An oddly disjointed effort, with scenes ranging from blackly comic to titillating to mildly offensive and back again, before attempting some sort of redemptive love-conquers-all ending. Hard to see who exactly this is aimed at and I suspect Brewer was having a bit of a laugh with his deliberately provocative set up and the mixing together of religious, racial and sexual themes, just to see who he could get hot under the collar. There's a couple of good bluesy numbers (some sang by Jackson himself), Justin Timberlake turns up in an early role and Ricci looks good in her pants, but otherwise not much to grab the attention.

Anything else I should know? Ricci was not impressed by the above poster for the film, which she claimed was exploitative of women. She might be right, but considering she spends over half the film writhing about in little more than a pair of skimpy knickers, she wasn't really in a strong position to argue the point. Further afield, the title was like manna from heaven to porno film-makers who rip-off proper film titles for their skin-flicks. Go on, see how many innuendo-laden variations you can come up with. Heh, heh, in your endo.

What does the Fonz think? Black Snake Groan.

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