Black Snake Moan is a Well-crafted Self-help Film that You Should Definitely Check Out on DVD: Review of Black Snake Moan

Starring Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes on A Plane, Pulp Fiction) and Christina Ricci (Monster), and directed by Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) Black Snake Moan offers good performances from Jackson and Ricci in a well-done self-help drama, but whenever Justin Timberlake is on screen, the entire film turns into a "lets make Justin feel better" kind of sentimental jargon.

In this tale of love, loss and faith, Oscar nominee, Jackson plays Lazareth, a deeply passionate religious man who just recently lost his wife to another man. This is not good, considering how much Lazareth loves his wife. Ricci plays Rae, a young woman with a fiance, Timberlake running off for military service, leaving her alone without any kind of sexual outlet. This proves to be a bad thing. She does have "the sickness".

Rae almost gets raped - the prick beats her unconscious instead. He throws her out of his truck. She rolls to the side of the road. Lazareth wakes up the next morning with a nasty hang-over, finds Rae's scratched and bloodied body, and carries her into his house. At one point, she forces him to literally chain her up. Don't get me wrong, Lazareth is a good guy. He likes music. He's a religious man as I've said before. He's an old-fashion southern kind of gentleman to some degree. But if you piss him off, you better watch out. Rae can't help but worry Lazareth. She has a few episodes of sleep-walking and Lazareth ends up having to take certain measures to keep her from hurting herself.

When Rae wakes up, needless to say, she's freaked out. She tries to make a break for it several times. Lazareth wins out each time, and slowly but surely forces young Rae to understand why she's shackled to a pipe. Then both of their issues are brought to the surface. We learn a lot about both these two characters and what their plights are. Of course, there a few racial overtones to overlook in this movie. It is the south and Lazareth is a black man holding a white woman captive. It makes you really start to think it's sad that the south hasn't pulled themselves out of the stone age. But, none of it detracts from the powerful drama shared between Rae and Lazareth.