The thing that stands out the most in "Black Snake Moan" isn't the highly charged sexuality that dominates the first half,
or the curiously uplifting theme of redemption that takes over in the second. It's the authentic dialogue that flows through the film, rich and alive, the kind of dialogue that makes novelists envious. It's not what the characters say that's so dynamic, it's the way they say it. The slang, the syntax, and the diction are all perfectly representative of a small, dusty Southern town. You can believe that Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci and the rest really are these people, with the backgrounds and life stories the movie gives them. So the dialogue is real. The story, not so much. It begins in exploitation land and winds up as a quasi-religious turn-your-life-around fable, and it's audacious and outrageous all the way through. Yet part of the magic worked by writer/director Craig Brewer (whose "Hustle & Flow" I found contrived) is that even at its most ludicrous, "Black Snake Moan" stays somehow believable. You think, "I can't believe I'm buying this," but the fact remains, you're buying it.
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