Black Snake Moan
Paramount Vantage | Release Date: March 2, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
13
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
EmpireDamon Wise
Sam Jackson delivers the electric blues in a not-so-blue movie that promises more Deep South sin than it actually delivers. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's hard to know what to make of the thing, though it has a sleazy charm, it's never boring and it goes a certain distance on Samuel L. Jackson's conviction. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Mix Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman" with Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," sex it up times 10 and you have a notion of the effect of Christina Ricci in Black Snake Moan. Read full review
50
Village VoiceRob Nelson
Black Snake Moan sho-nuff ain't no "Sweetback." Indeed, long stretches of Brewer's Suthun-fried sophomore slump come down the country road lookin' as haggard as a workaholic ho on a Sunday morning. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Black Snake Moan morphs into a wacky intergenerational bonding movie, something closer to "Harold and Maude" or "The Karate Kid" with a dusting of Southern grit. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The best thing about Black Snake Moan, a song title, is the blues soundtrack. The movie is an absurdly jarring collection of archetypal characters in miserable circumstances with a resolution that feels forced and tacked on. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Brewer knows how to guide his leads through this improbable story, and he kept me interested in spite of everything. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
In spite of Amelia Vincent's toothsome cinematography and the down-home locations, the movie often has the lumbering, literal-minded rhythms of a second-rate stage play -- not a moan or a howl, but a slow, anxious groan. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
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 full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Be prepared to collapse into a hoot and a howl of hilarity at all the wrong moments. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The blues music in "Moan" is superfine, but my oh my, what to make of the ripe Southern cliches and this absurd story. The film is so jaw-dropping awful that it just might become a boxoffice hit. Read full review
40
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Parading through most of the movie in a cutoff T-shirt and bikini briefs, Ricci takes the stereotype of the oversexed farmer's daughter to gothic extremes; Jackson's character, named Lazarus, is similarly drawn with oversize strokes. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Though Black Snake Moan is unadulterated deep-fried silliness from "Hustle & Flow" filmmaker Craig Brewer, Jackson makes it indisputably more palatable. It's still not a very good movie, but it's intermittently entertaining (and sometimes unintentionally funny). Read full review
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