Reporter Ward Jensen returns to his hometown to investigate a case about an inmate on death row as he has reasons to believe evidence has gone missing.
The cast in this film is probably the main reason I decided to watch it on Netflix and the storyline didn’t sound too bad either. But I guess you have to wait and see what the film will actually deliver as this is one seriously messed up film, in quite a few different ways! Which i will get into more detail later on in the review.
So Ward returns home and a lot of the story is also based around his younger brother Jack and how he is struggling to grow up and ends up being the driver. Hillary Van Wetter is the man who has been accused of murder and with the help of Charlotte Bless a very messed up 40-year-old woman who writes to men in prison. She claims she is in love with him and he is different to others she has contacted.
The story does have quite a few things going on and Anita the families maid played by Macy Gray was surprisingly the standout performance for me in this film. She has to deal with being black in the still very racist south. I really did think her part in the story and telling of the story was the best thing about this absolute mess of a film in all honesty.
You would think a film that has a lot of sex at the core would actually be quite engaging and you could possibly relate to it in some why. But if you can relate to any of it from this film, I think you may actually have issues. I won’t spoil one of the major twists but I have to mention THAT scene. If you have seen the film this will make more sense. The prison scene with the exchange between Kidman and Cusack which is quite possibly one of the worst things I have seen in a film, honestly it is just wrong on so many levels!
To begin with I was quite impressed with the style of the film, in terms of how artistic it was made to look by the way it was shot. Picking up on the heat of the summer and it looked good. That was only to begin with though, it slowly lost that sense of style and went on to become nothing much really. Which I think was one of the main reasons I was disappointed. I guess though that while I was disturbed by things happening I did keep watching until the end as it made me want to know exactly how it was going to end.
It was just too all over the place in terms of the story and seemed to just produce different things to shock the audience in any way possible whether it being the best idea to actually do so. I hope that actually makes sense. It tried very hard, maybe even too hard at times? I know its based on a book, I am curious on how close to the book it actually sticks to.
So overall I won’t be recommending this film to anyone, as wouldn’t want the responsibility of subjecting anyone to this!
