Three issues dealt with in this movie.
(1) Who murdered Mona, the transsexual?
(2) Will the sheriff, Billy Bob Thornton, overcome his revulsion for queers, men who dry flowers, women who like to wear spike collars, people of either sex who lust after cold sauerkraut, and other assorted wimps and pre-verts sufficiently to come to be truly in love with Mona's wife, Scarlett (Arquette)?
And (3) whatever is going to become of all these corrupt politicians?
The movie is nicely shot on location in Louisiana. The direction is competent, with only a few quick shots to dizzy the viewer. And the plot has a lot of texture to it. We honestly get the feeling that everyone in the parish knows everyone else. When a truck overturns and spills its load of shoes along the side of the road, Thornton makes several phone calls to the folks to come out and get some free shoes! Thornton's performance is really quite good. His morals are no better than they should be, perhaps. He shags his deputy's wife in the back seat of her own car. He hands out spilled shoes recklessly. He cheated on the wife who now despises him and has virtually no contact with his daughter, to whom he is irrelevant. Yet he comes across as a laid back sort of Southerner, easy going but a man who will stand firm when he feels he's being given the business. Not that he's one of those super action heroes. Thornton himself is no muscle man, and a black guy in a New Orleans strip club easily subdues him.
Patricia Arquette is such a cool blonde she seems positively Icelandic. And what eyes! It's impossible to put the color of her irises into words. Sela Ward is beautiful, classy, and voluptuous, and Thornton is a cretin for having cheated on her. I enjoyed William DeVane as the Southern judge too. DeVane is always reliable, and it's fun to see him as a genial and corrupt old pol, hobbling around on his walking stick. But it's Thornton who makes the movie, and he's very good.
Who killed Mona? (SPOILERS) Mona was shot by a factory reject with an IQ in the negative numbers and a moral code to match. The killing was simplicity itself. Almost everything else layered on in between tells us more about the community and its politics than about the murderer. Simply put, in the beginning, Thornton finds Mona's dead body. At the end he discovers that the overweight garage owner has a hole drilled through the wall of the lady's room so he can watch what goes on. When he discovers that Mona is anatomically male he goes berserk and Thornton gets him. The end.
But that brings us to issue numbers two and three. The movie draws a clear line between the "righteous" members of the community and the "oddballs" who live in New Orleans. Thornton at first is between the two but is repelled by hookers, no matter how sympathetic, amused when he finds that the victim's body has a penis. He has kicked his gay brother out of the Parish in order to be elected sheriff. By the end, it turns out that unfettered righteousness is more dangerous than open paraphilia. The reason Mona was in the Parish in the first place is that she had been brought from New Orleans to attend a stag party given by the politicians. And she was killed by a man who believes her murder was justified because "she shoulda never used the lady's room." Thornton rethinks his morality and comes to accept the oddballs for the human beings that they are.
I don't mean the movie is that preachy. Nobody makes speeches about it. It simply shows us Thornton's greater tolerance, which makes it possible for him to rebond with his family and with Arquette. It's a decent flick, although people who think homosexuals are sick, pre-verted, and deserving of death are unlikely to find it enjoyable in any way.
(1) Who murdered Mona, the transsexual?
(2) Will the sheriff, Billy Bob Thornton, overcome his revulsion for queers, men who dry flowers, women who like to wear spike collars, people of either sex who lust after cold sauerkraut, and other assorted wimps and pre-verts sufficiently to come to be truly in love with Mona's wife, Scarlett (Arquette)?
And (3) whatever is going to become of all these corrupt politicians?
The movie is nicely shot on location in Louisiana. The direction is competent, with only a few quick shots to dizzy the viewer. And the plot has a lot of texture to it. We honestly get the feeling that everyone in the parish knows everyone else. When a truck overturns and spills its load of shoes along the side of the road, Thornton makes several phone calls to the folks to come out and get some free shoes! Thornton's performance is really quite good. His morals are no better than they should be, perhaps. He shags his deputy's wife in the back seat of her own car. He hands out spilled shoes recklessly. He cheated on the wife who now despises him and has virtually no contact with his daughter, to whom he is irrelevant. Yet he comes across as a laid back sort of Southerner, easy going but a man who will stand firm when he feels he's being given the business. Not that he's one of those super action heroes. Thornton himself is no muscle man, and a black guy in a New Orleans strip club easily subdues him.
Patricia Arquette is such a cool blonde she seems positively Icelandic. And what eyes! It's impossible to put the color of her irises into words. Sela Ward is beautiful, classy, and voluptuous, and Thornton is a cretin for having cheated on her. I enjoyed William DeVane as the Southern judge too. DeVane is always reliable, and it's fun to see him as a genial and corrupt old pol, hobbling around on his walking stick. But it's Thornton who makes the movie, and he's very good.
Who killed Mona? (SPOILERS) Mona was shot by a factory reject with an IQ in the negative numbers and a moral code to match. The killing was simplicity itself. Almost everything else layered on in between tells us more about the community and its politics than about the murderer. Simply put, in the beginning, Thornton finds Mona's dead body. At the end he discovers that the overweight garage owner has a hole drilled through the wall of the lady's room so he can watch what goes on. When he discovers that Mona is anatomically male he goes berserk and Thornton gets him. The end.
But that brings us to issue numbers two and three. The movie draws a clear line between the "righteous" members of the community and the "oddballs" who live in New Orleans. Thornton at first is between the two but is repelled by hookers, no matter how sympathetic, amused when he finds that the victim's body has a penis. He has kicked his gay brother out of the Parish in order to be elected sheriff. By the end, it turns out that unfettered righteousness is more dangerous than open paraphilia. The reason Mona was in the Parish in the first place is that she had been brought from New Orleans to attend a stag party given by the politicians. And she was killed by a man who believes her murder was justified because "she shoulda never used the lady's room." Thornton rethinks his morality and comes to accept the oddballs for the human beings that they are.
I don't mean the movie is that preachy. Nobody makes speeches about it. It simply shows us Thornton's greater tolerance, which makes it possible for him to rebond with his family and with Arquette. It's a decent flick, although people who think homosexuals are sick, pre-verted, and deserving of death are unlikely to find it enjoyable in any way.