![]() But still there’s that frisson: he won’t. It will be almost impossible to enter a cinema showing this film, or rent the DVD, without knowing this is going to happen. Jackson’s performance is vital to the film’s success, and he alone pulls the film back from its supreme, what-were-they-thinking? moment, when Lazarus takes the 40-foot chain and shackles Ricci’s almost comically lascivious Rae to the radiator. ![]() Indeed, although Jackson’s never been one to shy away from tricky material, his Lazarus seems more like one of Danny Glover’s creations, a witty and intelligent subversion of the ongoing movie stereotyping that still doesn’t quite know what to do with African-American men, casting them as slaves, drug dealers, crooks or God. Although Christina Ricci is the star who appears to be taking a risk, rolling round in distractingly pristine white pants and a pointless top that doesn’t seem to be designed to cover anything at all, it’s Jackson who faces the task of not only carrying the film but saving it, and himself, from derision. It’s hard to say from where precisely the film gets its integrity, but it’s safe to start with Samuel L. In theory, Black Snake Moan ought to be a copper-bottomed stinker, but in reality it’s a flawed but strangely charming morality tale, a conservative fairy tale despite its steamy, quasi-porno trimmings. But sometimes that thought isn’t a measure of a film’s failure but a slack-jawed reaction to its success. ![]() It brings to mind the penis song from The Sweetest Thing, the incomprehensible non-climax of the yet-to-be-released Southland Tales, or the entirety of Freddy Got Fingered. Normally, if this thought occurs to you while you’re actually sitting in the cinema, this is a pretty bad thing. First you need a script, then a director, some stars, maybe a studio or just a businessman with deep pockets, but whatever the palaver, it boils down to one thing: at some point, everybody will get together, some of them will stand in front of a camera and act the damn thing out while everyone else is standing around in the video village watching the playback and saying, “Yep, that’s where the money’s going.” ![]()
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