Briar Patch (2003)

Director:

Zev Berman

Writer:

Deborah Pryor (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

Love. Marriage. Murder. Sometimes they're all...Plain Dirty

Plot:

A woman becomes immersed in a brutal love triangle when an unwelcomed admirer kills her abusive husband even though she's already having an affair.

Plot Keywords:

Lack Of Education

Awards:

2 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Dominique Swain	...	Inez
Henry Thomas	...	Edgar MacBeth
Arie Verveen	...	Flowers
James Urbaniak	...	Druden Hunt
Karen Allen	...	Butcher Lee
Debra Monk	...	Officer Avon
Blake Lindsley	...	Raeburn
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Sam Froelich	...	Warehouse Foreman
Judy Simpson	...	Mrs. Hunt

Also Known As:

Plain Dirty (USA) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, violence and some drug content.

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:M | USA:R

Filming Locations:

High Point, North Carolina, USA

Company:

Down Home Entertainment

Quotes:

Flowers: Please don't do that, Brer Fox.
Edgar MacBeth: It ain't no fun to get your husband angry, if you ain't around to see it.

Where's Billy Bob & Gatsby

My heavens, why such a low star score!! This was a very well done movie in all aspects of theater, given the storyline plot is one commonly hackneyed. This movie isn't in the Cat On A Hot Tin Roof notch, but it sure did play a close second in the intensity department! This wasn't of the style of Billy Bob Thornton in Chrystal or Redford in Gatsby, but you got the hillbilly gal semi-tushing her way into the wishful richer world and get out of her backwoods living. The direction, casting, styles and acting were all topnotch and keeps you anticipating more unto the very end. I do get weary of movies using cornfields as inexpensive scenes in these types (and others) of movies (and it was a little whacked to see a Kansas type cornfield not far from a swamp), but it fit well in this movie for the short use they made of it with Officer Avon and Flowers characters ... it was ideal for that particular important scene and it set a motif for next scenes very well. Photography was done very well with good angles, and for once! a decent background music score. I do get weary of dueling banjos even though I really like it, but it wouldn't be suitable to have an association of Deliverance here. It was just all very well put together and the movie just flows.

Too many movies have come across with backwood hicks being stupid or racists and other such stereotyping. This movie put more meat into the character developments with serious and calculated depth. Even tho the Inez character obviously had a hard streak about her, her manipulations were upfront and honest, with rational reasoning to stomp her steps through the movie. You can't help but like, admire and pity her and yet be accompanied by dismay (and minor frustration, but not annoyingly so) of her intellectual limitations to step out of her bad situation with a better solution. However, that doesn't happen in life and this movie albeit intense, was a refreshing straying from stereotyping of a battered and abused woman. I liken this movie to the level of the movie Tim, with Mel Gibson, whereby the characters are portrayed with specific complex and simplistic limitations/boundaries giving the audience the decision of forming their own separate opinion(s) of each characterization instead of the director "telling" you this-or-that is what you should be thinking.

Would I watch this movie again? I probably wouldn't rent it again, but would watch it again, but would need to be mentally geared for another viewing. This was a rather deep movie to take the first time around, and is probably why others gave it a lower score. I would recommend watching it, but would say if you're more into less mental type movies, this would not be your cup of tea.