Director: Lee Daniels
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 0.5
A journalist from the Miami Herald, Ward (Matthew McConaughey), along with his partner Yardley (David Oyelowo), investigate the murder of a Sheriff from his hometown and try to prove the man suspected of doing the deed, Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack), is innocent - there to provide assistance is Ward's brother Jack (Zac Efron) and the woman in love with Hillary, Charlotte (Nicole Kidman). Daniels is clearly going for a kinky potboiler feel with the explicit scenes - of Hillary and Charlotte having an 'intimate' moment when they first meet in prison, of Jack being peed on by Charlotte (because of the jellyfish stings), of Ward being tied up and maimed (willingly?) as a part of some BDSM fetish (that leaves him blind in one eye) - but they're only there to try to mask the pointlessness of the story and the terrible dialogue (get ready for white people using the N-word ... a lot!). Daniels was trying to make it look like a 'gritty' movie from the late sixties, but with a stacked cast and an ample budget, there's nothing cheap about it - it's a complete embarrassment for almost all involved, except for Scott Glenn (as Ward and Jack's father) and Macy Gray (as the narrator). My favorite line comes from Nicole Kidman, after getting violated on top of a washing machine: "I don't think I'm gonna like living in a swamp!"
