Some films prefer to ease their audiences in gently, allowing some time for story orientation and character introductions as opposed to, say, opening with a shot of Justin Timberlake and Christina Ricci having hip-tickling, sweat-drenched sex. ""Black Snake Moan"" is not one of those films. Fortunately, it isn't Timberlake's newest music video either, as my description might suggest, but rather, the first twang in a movie that throbs like a soul-strumming guitar accompanied by the frantic rattling of chains.
After teaching us the valuable lesson that ""it's hard out there for a pimp"" in ""Hustle & Flow,"" director Craig Brewer's second film tells the heart-warming tale of a nymphomaniac and the man who chains her to his radiator. ""Black Snake Moan""—whose titillating title is rooted in the music of blues legend Blind Lemon Jefferson—is an unflinching film that flaunts its risquAc attitudes like an erogenous parade until the sultry audacity is replaced by a mildly-intriguing study of human weakness.
The infallible Samuel L. Jackson—fresh off his virtuoso performance in that intellectual masterpiece ""Snakes on a Plane""—plays Lazarus, a religious vegetable farmer who practically breathes those ""blood bucket blues"" and uses biblical quotes to threaten people like he's seen ""Pulp Fiction"" a few too many times. Ricci, meanwhile, delivers an equally stellar performance as Rae, a smorgasbord of vices who throws herself at men like they're soaked in Axe, and whose peculiar phobia of clothing has led to her anatomical strings being plucked by nearly every man in town. Timberlake costars as Rae's lover boy, Ronnie. Now, while you're probably thinking that Justin Timberlake playing a typical tabacca-spittin', foul-mouthed ruffian sounds more unnatural than Spongebob starring in the next Scorsese film, relax.
It turns out Ronnie's nothing but a pusillanimous little twitter basket, who suffers from anxiety and melts in Rae's arms when she sings ""This Little Light of Mine."" When Ronnie goes off to war, Rae goes on a debaucherous bender until her beaten, half-naked and feverish body is dumped in Lazarus' driveway.
Lazarus soon discovers through Rae's sexual advances that her ""fever"" isn't just biological. Comparing Rae's promiscuity with his ex-wife who just left him for his younger brother, Lazarus decides to cure Rae of her ""wickedness"" through a method of exorcism he actually refers to as ""crop"" rotation and that the writers for Saw might have brainstormed if they did comedy.
With a script that's bound to get laughs regardless of intent, Brewer smartly squeezes out as much humor as possible. In the scenes where Rae appears possessed by a dog in heat, her erotic itch manifests itself in a sound similar to hissing cockroaches. Another scene has Lazarus taking Rae for a walk by chain like a yoked donkey. Still, Jackson and Ricci put such gusto into their roles that it's hard not to believe them.
While the film's plot is more ridiculous than a Chuck Norris chick flick, it has greasy blues style—including a soundtrack dripping with B.B. King's soul, cinematography that seems dipped in liquefied Smurfs and even bars that serve Pabst—that suffocates the film like southern humidity.
In the end, this film didn't make me moan with ecstasy or nausea, but it's still worth a look if, for no other reason, to bask in some southern-fried absurdity.
