BEFORE: Of course, this one was available on Netflix at some point, when it came to my attention - but now that I've finally found a slot to watch it, it's gone from the service. This keeps happening, at least once or twice every month. Why on Earth would their service recommend a movie to me, say, "Oh, here's something you might really like to watch, based on your history" and then pull it a month or two later? How the hell does Netflix stay in business if they're always frustrating their customers like this? I suppose most potential viewers would just shrug that off and say, "Oh, well, I guess I'll just watch something else..." but here I made a PLAN and everything, this film now serves a vital link between the Nicole Kidman movies and two more films with Matthew McConaughey. So now I have to go spend $3.99 to rent it on iTunes, or re-work my chain, which I don't want to do at this time. I think secretly Netflix must get some kind of kick-back from Apple and Amazon Prime whenever this happens. It's a diabolical plot to make me pay for more movie rentals.
Wait, this has been gone from Netflix since October? And it was only streaming there for one year, not the usual two? Something must have gone wrong, like nobody was watching it - now I've got a bad feeling this is a terrible movie, if it couldn't even stay on Netflix for a full two-year cycle. And still, there's no way to find out in advance if a movie is about to disappear - what would be so wrong with posting the dates IN ADVANCE when films are due to be removed from the service. Or how about some kind of alert that say, four titles on my list are going to be gone within the next 30 days? Wouldn't that be kind of useful, so I could prioritize my watch-list? I'm just sayin'.
Nicole Kidman carries over again from "Boy Erased".
THE PLOT: A reporter returns to his Florida hometown to investigate a cast involving a death row inmate.
AFTER: Well, this is a weird one, to say the least. It's set back in 1969, and essentially it's about this man who's about to receive the death penalty for killing a sheriff, only it seems that much of the evidence has gone missing, or possibly never existed at all, and the man who's been charged might be innocent. The lead character is Ward, a reporter who comes back to his hometown in Florida with Yardley, a black reporter, to help exonerate the man, or at least write a story about him, and also arriving in town at the same time is Charlotte, a woman who's been exchanging letters with the convicted man, and wants to marry him. Rounding out the foursome is the reporter's younger brother, Jack, who's been working as a paperboy since getting kicked out of college for vandalism. (He emptied the pool after a swim meet, but doesn't explain how or why, this is one of many loose narrative threads that is never really explained to a satisfying degree...)
The film isn't very concerned about the "why" of things, like why does the reporter feel so strongly that the killer is innocent? Does he just have a strong feeling that the death penalty is wrong in all cases, or does he have some knowledge about the accused killer, perhaps from when he used to live in that town? And why does it fall upon a reporter to clear this guy, isn't that what a lawyer is supposed to do? OK, sure, maybe a reporter could get some publicity for the inconsistencies in the case like the lack of evidence, but a lawyer would still need to be involved, right?
NITPICK POINT: Ward writes for the Miami Times, and his father publishes a much smaller, local newspaper in Moat County, but the father also distributes the Times in that county - huh? This seems very weird, like if you ran a small newspaper why would you also promote the much larger newspaper that sells better, and could run you out of business? Did some screenwriter not understand how newspapers work? Like when I was a kid there was a local soda company in town, and they sold ONLY their own brand, if they sold Coke and Pepsi also, that would make no sense. Or imagine a craft brewery that also sold Budweiser and Miller beer to the same bars, it just wouldn't happen. I was a paperboy myself for a local newspaper in Massachusetts, one that covered three small towns, and there's no way that tiny outfit would also distribute, say, the Boston Globe. Why would anyone help sell the competition's newspapers?
Since Ward and Jack's mother split years ago and lives in Tucson, this film continues the loose theme of absent or inattentive parents - last week it was absent fathers, this week seems to be all about absent mothers. Since Jack never had a strong mother figure, except for the family's black maid, he falls for the older Charlotte as some combination of mother and sex object - so he's smitten by her, but he also resents her, for some reason he thinks they aren't very different in age, but they obviously are. He wants to get closer to her, but then ends up pushing her away. There's a lot to unpack there, but again, the movie doesn't feel like getting around to it. Of course he and his brother hate their father's latest girlfriend - she is rather annoying - but in such a case, no woman can ever replace their mother in their hearts, even if that mother abandoned the family. (Not that it's clear whether she did, another loose unexplained thread...)
Possibly connected to this is the implication that Ward has a dark side, suggested by the scars on his face, umm, I think. There seem to be all sorts of implied things taking place just below the surface, but the revelations still come from a bit out of left field, when they do come at all. The film also can't seem to decide if nobody is exactly who they say they are, or if everyone is exactly who they appear to be, in the end. A little more clarity about everyone's true intentions would have gone a long way here. Similarly the plot gets sidetracked with everything from civil rights to kinky sex to people drinking too much that now I'm not sure if they ever got around to answering the question that was asked in the first place - namely, who killed the sheriff?
Also starring Matthew McConaughey (last seen in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"), Zac Efron (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), John Cusack (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), David Oyelowo (last heard in "A Wrinkle in Time"), Macy Gray (last seen in "Idlewild"), Scott Glenn (last seen in "Nights in Rodanthe"), Ned Bellamy (also last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Nealla Gordon (last seen in "The Butler"), Danny Hanemann with cameos from J.D. Evermore (last seen in "Live by Night"), Faizon Love (also last seen in "Idlewild"), Lee Daniels and archive footage of Johnny Carson (last seen in "The Most Hated Woman in America"), Barbara Bain.
RATING: 4 out of 10 jellyfish stings
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