No need to mince words here: Black Snake Moan is not what you are led to expect from the posters and trailers. This is not the Southern Gothic exploitation movie some reviewers have called it. It starts off in that direction but about two-thirds of the way through switches gears and shifts into a piss poor message of hope movie.
On the upside Black Snake Moan is great to look at, the music is scorching, the acting is solid, (Samuel L. Jackson gets to act for once) and even skeletal Christina Ricci has a great rack. The first half of the movie is great and moves along nicely no fuss, no muss. And then it falls apart. My biggest problem is with time. There just seems to be an absurdly short period of time for everything to happen. This makes all that transpires seem trite, forced, and undermines the rest of the movie. If characters had the chance to develop a believable rapport, been able to really dig into their characters, then Black Snake Moan could have been Old Testament powerful.
Maybe I'm missing something but in the end Black Snake Moan was about as thrilling as a muzak version of a Stevie Ray Vaughn song.
