Black Snake Moan 2006

Critics score:
66 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: For Black Snake Moan to work any sort of magic, it must be viewed as a blues riff on damaged souls and their desperate need for salvation. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's an exploitation film fraught with faux-sincerity, and ultimately it's utterly ridiculous. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Black Snake Moan strikes me as hogwash. It fundamentally does not work; its consciously far-fetched, out-there notions of the things damaged people do in the name of love are reductive and go only so far. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: I loved the picture's tabloid energy and heart. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Any movie that can make Samuel L. Jackson convincing as a great Memphis bluesman must be doing something right. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: For all the preposterous cliches of the plot, Black Snake Moan finds unchained energy in its foolishness, and gives Mr. Jackson a chance to pluck a guitar and sing. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The picture may look pulpishly provocative, but while Brewer constantly confounded our expectations in Hustle & Flow, this time he barely ruffles our feathers once he establishes his outrageous dime-novel tone. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Pitched uncomfortably but compellingly between homage and exploitation in its big-hearted exploration of the steamiest corners of black life. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: I saw something, but I'm not exactly sure what it was. One thing's likely: You've never seen a film like Black Snake Moan, and you won't see anything like it in the near future. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Had the old black man and the young white chick gotten it on, I think some audiences might have exploded. Perhaps sensing this, Black Snake Moan backs off, giving us a neat and clean Hallmark card ending. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: [Writer-director Craig Brewer] displays a real passion for the music and a knack for using it to create mood. But it's not enough to overcome the thinness of his characters or the greeting card sentiment that pulls the rug out from what came before. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: It's a steamy, searing saga of rigorous redemption confronting creepy Southern seediness. But it's not nearly the wake-up call it could have been. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Maybe Jackson should avoid any more movies with 'snake' in the title. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Black Snake Moan is a myth-and-reconciliation story with outlandish scenes meant to make you laugh, make you uncomfortable. Both. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Having established his characters and built their bond, having cooked up a sense of place so strong you can taste it, Brewer can't find anywhere in particular to go. Suddenly he brings a gun into the mix, then takes an awkward Dr. Phil turn. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Be prepared to collapse into a hoot and a howl of hilarity at all the wrong moments. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: An engorged melodrama meant to evoke the dark passions of country blues, Black Snake Moan often comes off like Britney Spears singing Skip James. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Black Snake Moan is thick with Tennessee sweat and grit and the sound of insects. And it takes an overwrought, steamy path to what at least feels like a moral cautionary tale. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: One day, when he outgrows his terminal adolescence, [director] Brewer might be the perfect filmmaker to tackle Faulkner or Tennessee Williams. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Cockeyed and raffishly amusing tale of redemption, spilling over with blues music and southern-fried sexism. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The characters never connect, and the movie never takes off. Rae may be the one sporting a padlock around her waist. But it's the movie that's shackled. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: The movie strolls right past absurdity into offensiveness, by trying to pass this pulp nonsense off as noble art. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: This is the kind of movie that's best enjoyed as a stylized fantasy, much like Brewer's most obvious model, Elia Kazan's Southern-fried Tennessee Williams adaptation Baby Doll. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: A cartoonish Baby Doll, with a suggestive blues song title, about sex, guilt and redemption. Black Snake is also a rather flimsy parable unable to support the weight of Brewers ambition. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is a bold follow-up to Hustle and Flow. Would that more filmmakers and actors took these kinds of risks. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I love the way that both Samuel Jackson and Christina Ricci take chances like this, and the way that Brewer creates characters of unbelievable forbearance. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: An ingenious and stylish entertainment, Pulp Fiction with a Southern accent and a heart of gold, driven by both love of the Lord and a certain affection for the other fella. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Black Snake Moan is a trip to that unfamiliar territory well worth tagging along on. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Depriving a near-naked and recently assaulted stranger of the most basic physical liberty for days on end is a sick, perverse, and cruel thing to do. Black Snake Moan appears to be -- or, worse, pretends to be -- oblivious to that simple fact. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: This is one of those ludicrous, semi-offensive, semi-entertaining potboilers that feels as if the script were dragged out from someone's naughty-book stash. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Despite its considerable unwholesome appeal, the movie gives us the feeling it has been chained up as well and that chain won't let it go any farther than a single outrageous idea. Read more

Mark Holcomb, Time Out: Delightfully outrageous, Black Snake Moan is an explosive mixture of sex, race and down-South swamp water. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: An absurdly jarring collection of archetypal characters in miserable circumstances with a resolution that feels forced and tacked on. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: A well-executed, handsome-looking film that runs perhaps 20 minutes longer than it should given its storyline. Read more

Rob Nelson, Village Voice: For God's sake, don't be boring. Alas, after his camera has had its fill of ogling Rae, Brewer turns out to have nothing up his sleeve, nothing in his pants, only a little on his mind and none of it, amazingly, to do with race. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Brewer's reworking of Southern mythologies can sometimes seem condescending, even though his affection for the region's culture is palpable. But there's no denying he knows how to spin a yarn and create vivid, indelible images. Read more