Black Snake Moan

Black Snake Moan had so much potential with its dirty style of visual and unique characters and performances, unfortunately by the conclusion that potential withered down to hardly mediocre.

Black Snake Moan is set in the deep south in a small town where a former blues musician named Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) lives. He finds a young girl who was severally beaten and dumped on the road nearby his small farm. The girl he finds is named Rae (Christina Ricci) is the town whore and has been taken advantage of by nearly every man in town. She has an uncontrollable need for sex, so after Lazarus takes care of her back to life he chains her up to control her. Her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) comes back after being discharged from the army, misunderstands the relationship between Lazarus and Rae, and tries to kill him.

The film started out wonderful and enjoyable. It was raw, depressing and most of all it had character. Samuel L. Jackson does an excellent job with his character. As usual he has a worry-free manner and full of smart remarks. You instantly get a feel for how sick Christina Ricci’s character is from the start. Unfortunately, that’s where the good things end, which is a shame because it definitely had potential. It was as if the first 30 minutes was a completely different movie from the rest. It simply didn’t have enough conflict throughout the movie. I felt there were more opportunities it could have used rather than the one inner-conflict with Ricci.

The middle was flat out boring, I kept waiting for something big to happen and instead it kept going on as if it was building up to something. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if there was actually something that happens after the buildup. Black Snake Moan doesn’t have a solid climax and a very weak resolution at the end. The ending of the movie felt rushed and unsatisfying.

Started out with potential of being decent but the end result was a barely mediocre film. It was disappointing and forgettable.