Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

Black Snake Moan

Bluesmen and nymphomaniacs

By TOM MEEK | February 28, 2007

1.5 Stars

Craig Brewer, the promising director who hit it with Hustle and Flow, seems to harbor a need to exorcise his white burden through films centered on black music. In H&F it was a pimp with rapper ambitions; here it’s a spurned husband who plays the blues while trying to right a wayward nymphomaniac. By the time we see a black man with a white woman at the end of a chain in just her panties, the bar for shock has already gone through the roof, what with Rae (Christina Ricci), a trailer-trash wildcat who’s just sent her man (Justin Timberlake) off to the service, getting an itch and screwing half the town. Samuel L. Jackson provides the touch of humanity as Lazarus, the broken soul trying to redeem Rae. In the end, the two actors do rise above the hoo-hah. Still, Ricci, possessed and ripping off her clothes like a rabid succubus, is the film’s only lingering accomplishment.

Related: Ladies' night, On the racks: August 15, 2006, Will.i.am, More

Topics: Reviews , Justin Timberlake, Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, More

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