Genres: Drama
Releasing Date: 20 August 2013 (USA)
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Writers: Billy Bob Thornton
Stars: Tippi Hedren, Kevin Bacon, Ray Stevenson
Language: English
Billy Bob Thornton returns as director but also interprets more than fifteen so Watch Jayne Mansfield’s Car movie to see his new creativity. He is working this time with his own material with a scenario it is highly personal. Dealing with the consequences of various wars (the First and Second World Wars, Korea, Vietnam …) on a broken family, he also attempts to describe the inability to communicate on the part of men with well-defined principles.
Unfortunately, the characters gathered at the funeral of the mother – it had wished to be buried in the south of origin – are generally so irritating that it seems to attend an unpleasant family reunion. This is what makes both the success and limitations of this ensemble film that annoy many. Here men are real guys, it will be understood, as if they existed today. They hide behind their principles to better hide their wounds; they complete so manly demonstrations, proudly wearing their acts of war and other decorations that their blindness eventually exhausts the most alert viewer.
Almost impenetrable in their limited, or their ideologies reasoning, they misfortune younger , dedicated also to take an army falls into the curse. Contempt for that would have been “only” prisoners gave way to that of those who did not kill anyone, or worse were injured. In the end, despite a troupe of actors peerless (Duvall, Hurt, Patrick), none triggers empathy, being as irritating as each other. Gradually creating a suffocating atmosphere that makes the film unbearable length, Billy Bob Thornton has finally kept the only role that can leave the viewer from its torpor.
He succeeded indeed to touch, especially during a scene in the forest where he found a woman, no less; the big secret is that he feels “special” in this cruel world. Unfortunately, the film is sorely lacking in balance, preferring to give free rein to resentment rather than basing the true basis for reconciliation between generations and political trends.