Zac Efron's 'coming-of-age'movie starts with a brutal killing, develops into a love-triangle-cum-family saga and then, like every other film set in the Everglades, explodes into an orgy of Gothic violence. There are some heavy borrowings here: themes from Erskine Caldwell and Tennessee Williams, the Cain-and-Abel brothers (not quite Biblical) from HUD, plus a large dose of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
Everyone plays it very straight but this overheated melodrama frequently teeters on the verge of farce. Kidman delivers her most feisty trailer- trash performance since her star-making role in TO DIE FOR. Zac Efron grows before our eyes from uber-cute teenager into mega-gorgeous hunk of manhood, a process Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise triumphantly went through some years back. Mae Clarke, a nearly forgotten actress from the 1930s, is largely remembered for having a grapefruit squashed in her face by James Cagney in a gangster flick. Zac Efron runs the risk that he will forever be remembered for being peed on by Nicole Kidman in THE PAPERBOY!
Everyone plays it very straight but this overheated melodrama frequently teeters on the verge of farce. Kidman delivers her most feisty trailer- trash performance since her star-making role in TO DIE FOR. Zac Efron grows before our eyes from uber-cute teenager into mega-gorgeous hunk of manhood, a process Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise triumphantly went through some years back. Mae Clarke, a nearly forgotten actress from the 1930s, is largely remembered for having a grapefruit squashed in her face by James Cagney in a gangster flick. Zac Efron runs the risk that he will forever be remembered for being peed on by Nicole Kidman in THE PAPERBOY!