Black Snake Moan

Review in a Hurry:  Dance, writhe, screw, drug, rehabilitate, sing, play guitar. Tired yet? Don't be. Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson are only just getting' started.

The Bigger Picture:  Christina Ricci is tied up in chains and humping everything in sight, and Samuel L. Jackson is not singing the blues and then very adamantly is singing and playing ‘em too.

If this were a bad movie, you'd spend your time thinking about these A-list stars doing these crazy things. Instead, director Craig Brewer wins, hands down. And you're not thinking—you're just in it. (Except when Justin Timberlake is onscreen, but never mind that li'l white boy.)

What you're into is a ridiculous, Southern-fried melodrama about Rae, a nymphomaniac girl, who shakes her disease with the help of Lazarus, a bitter, older cuckold with a talent for the blues. The camera work is not fancy, it's barely even there, as if Brewer is too excited about the visuals to fuss around.

Yet, the opposite sort of fervor applies to the sound, the music, the entire aural ambiance. At the moment when Rae and Lazarus really connect, God intervenes, in the form of overproduced and distracting thunder and rain. Amen!

So, about Justin, gulp. Moan would simply be better off without his character, the boyfriend who Rae truly loves, who runs off to the marines in Act One and returns for Act Three. It isn't totally J.T.'s fault; his character screams "I'm only here to fill in some plot points." A more confident director might have done without him.

But so what? Moan offers that rare cinematic escape into another dimension. When the lights come up, make sure you know of a blues bar nearby. You're not gonna be ready for the ho-hum of the real world.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  You could see this as an exploitation movie that is 30 minutes too long and a way too monotonous to be any fun. You wouldn't be totally out of your mind to think Ricci and Jackson should have brought it down quite a few of notches if they expected anyone to give a damn 'bout her nekkid bod and his nekkid soul.