Mud (2013)

Two young boys (TREE OF LIFE's Tye Sheridan, newcomer Jacob Lofland) living off the Alabama river encounter a murderer (Matthew McConaughey) hiding in the swamps. He befriends them and uses them to contact his lady love (Reese Witherspoon) into running away with him. A disappointment. Not a bad film by any means but a major disappointment coming off director Jeff Nichols last film, the compelling TAKE SHELTER. Using Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as a jump off point, Nichols creates a primitively rustic preciseness that's a marvel to behold and his two young actors are a joy to watch. But he attempts to cram too much when one of the film's three storylines would have been enough. Nichols doesn't seem to trust his audience and though I warmed up to the movie immediately but I became uncomfortable when the two boys watched some venomous cottonmouths in the muddy water and it became obvious he was telegraphing to us that those snakes were going to bite one of the major characters before the movie was over. Add an unintentional strain of misogyny ("Don't trust women, they'll hurt you, deceive you") reinforced by several of the female characters and top it off with a laughable shoot 'em up finale and well ... as I said, a disappointment. Marvelous cinematography by Adam Stone and a first rate score by David Wingo though. With Sam Shepard, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Roy McKinnon and Joe Don Baker.