I often wonder to myself: "what would you get if you took an actress from a multiple Oscar-winning film and put her in a movie with a down-home, country boy, complete with awful quality and typical writing?" You would get Dixieland. This film is a dull and predictable social drama about an ex-con that tries to get readjusted into "normal" life but gets caught up with trouble in his hometown. Chris Zylka (a mostly unknown actor) and Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road) star in this movie that attempts to touch on topics like sex and suicide but instead fails to bring anything out of the audience.
The biggest, almost unbearable problem with this film was its writing and the story that came out of it. The problem with the story is that there was none. The only information we got from the introduction of the film is that Kermit, played by Chris Zylka, was released from prison and planned to start a new life over again. However, there was no clear goal in mind for him or any of the characters, in fact. I can not stand films that do not set a clear goal in the story and it makes the characters suffer as well. The main events of this film just happened and there was no background or point to why the characters were doing what they were doing. Because of this misguided tone, the plot had nowhere to go until the very ending. It was not until the third act of the movie that I realized what Kermit's goal was the entire time. He was caught up in an old drug deal gone wrong (which is already a typical drama device), but no content from the film ever revealed that that was happening. There was almost no character development in this movie and the only attempted development was horribly written. Kermit and his girlfriend Rachel were the two main characters, but did not change throughout the film at all. Kermit could have been a lot more complex character, with him fresh out of prison and all, but instead he seemed to be a happy-go-lucky guy. This did not make sense for him in the slightest and it especially didn't make sense for him to break down in the car and shoot himself. This was one of the biggest moments of the movie, but nothing in his character showed that he was internally struggling. As for Rachel, upon learning about Kermit's death, was only slightly upset. She seemed like she was desensitized to this kind of thing happening and no emotions were ever present. The only decent aspect of the writing was Kermit's aspirations to become a hair stylist. But of course, this subplot that could have been very intriguing, was never flushed out.
Technical parts of this movie were not the greatest either, as the performances were below mediocre and the cinematography was messy. Chris Zylka and Riley Keough starred in the two lead roles, but were both unimpressive. Even though Zylka is a smaller and not as known actor, I expected a lot more from Keough. It is strange that she can go from Mad Max: Fury Road to this film in the same year and give completely different quality performances. Then again, I would want to try my hardest to impress Tom Hardy, so that is understandable. I am not sure if it was the camera work or the editing that made the lighting in this film constantly overbearing, but the overexposed shots were not of the greatest quality. I think it might have been the director trying to be too "artsy" with the cinematography, but it did not work right with the tone of the film. The final piece of this story that I did not quite understand was the use of testimonials throughout this film. They helped establish the Southern setting of the film very well, but the writing in all of them just did not make sense. This film was not an adaptation of a true story, so the fact that another level of fiction was added further confused me. The story could have easily been told without those peculiar testimonials.
Dixieland is a frankly boring film with uninteresting characters or plot that fails to provide anything new in the sense of a social drama. All of the plot devices were typical and while there was potential for better character development, it was ditched for whatever reason. I would not recommend watching this movie unless you just really, REALLY need some half-attempted Southern "charm" in your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment