South of Heaven, West of Hell
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Most of us aren't Country music legends who have received critical acclaim for acting work in almost a dozen movies, so if we went to Buck Henry and said "I want to write, direct, star in, and score a movie, so please produce it for me but give me creative control," he would say "NO!" (Actually, a real Hollywood person would say: "My people will call your people. We'll do lunch." It means the same thing.) However, if you're Dwight Yoakum, Buck Henry says: "Okay, how much money do you need?" This is how such movies are made. Part of my distaste for this film is directly related to my feelings about the Hollywood system that produces vanity movies for celebrities, while talented but unknown screenwriters struggle to get their work read. I have nothing against somebody writing a movie and directing it, starring himself with his buddies and his girlfriend. The results get shown to family and a dozen friends, and it doesn't matter if it isn't any good. When your girlfriend is Bridget Fonda and your buddies are Peter Fonda, Billy-Bob Thornton, and Vince Vaughn, you get national distribution, and it doesn't matter if it isn't any good. Doesn't seem fair.
I am tempted to enumerate the many sins of this story and its directing in glaring detail, but I'd be showing off. Let me just say that I thought the structure, pacing, character development, narrative cohesion, dialog, and thematic coherence were poor. If I wrote this review to match the experience of watching this movie, it would be grimly violent, depressing, aimless, and excruciatingly SLOW.
If you liked the movies below, you'll probably like this one (and visa versa): Overall Rating: 2 (where 1=Worthless, 10=Fabulous) Eight-Facet Info Rating, rated on a scale of 0 (None) to 4 (Lots!)): |