“Blood on the Bayou”: Online Review

For those looking for insight into the place where I live there is another entry on the cultural landscape that can provide some insight while providing some entertainment.
This is my blog review of the movie “Blood on the Bayou” which is a feature length debut by principal screenwriter, lead actor and director Russell hebert. the review which appears below as copied from my Facebook profile was accompanied there by a photograph and followed several status posts and photos from the premiere. That is why these extra words are added here.
I am not able to negotiate this blog as nimbly as I used to do. Perhaps I will upgrade my account eventually. However, I am also posting this on a computer other than my own and so cannotupload the photos just now.

In the earlier Facebook posts I mentioned that Joe Horn is a New Orleans Saints stand-out. I credited the good acting by April Covert,David Bertrand and Darryl Robassa. The cast was a large on and several actors who performed well are not mentioned here but these deserve special mention. I think that if the reader of this blog can keep these things in mind then the Facebook Profile review is adequate.

Blood on the Bayou: A Review Online
by Frank Wynerth Summers III on Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 7:36pm ·

I am busy with many events related to the end of the year, Christmas and many other things that make up my life. However, I took the time to go to the premiere of Blood on the Bayou and to write and post this review. I am glad I did.

This film was a real effort to make a real movie which was largely an entertainment. However, it did a bit more than that. First it dealt with the racial boundaries,mixes, interplay and other conditions not of some fictional place but of a fictional version of Louisiana, Acadiana, Vermilion Parish and Abbeville. There was a little bit of an affinity to some of the Southern characters of fiction and screen that have come from Grisham novels and even more of a sense of being in communication with Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novel and their screen adaptations. But private invesitgator Travis Richard and the other characters are not rip=offs or imitations of anyone else.

The ring of truth is part of the movie from the landscapes and architectural shots bathed in natural light to the plot line which includes fishing, going out to the camp in the country which has been damaged by a hurricane and the fact that a stripper and prostitute is both very vulnerable and comes from a famliy that stay in touch with one another and care about her. This is a world those of us who live here and grew up here recognize. The assasination of the gubernatorial candidate played by Joe Horn may be attibutable to race, class, greed corruption, political philosophy and the answers are not simple. The police and sherriff’s office play and important role but Richard moves in a big world that flows all around theirs and is made up of risks and demands that are related to his values. Richard is a Americanist in the political sense, a Saints Fan, a hardworker and a believer in tolerance for marijuana, sexually imprpoper exprexxion and the use of coarse langauage among men in his sphere. We can recognize bith the character and Russell Hebert’s portrayal.

The film was made on a shoestring but it is not riddled with iomperfections. It boasts a credible original soundtrack and the acting is sound. Are thre no weaknesses in this first effort?

Yes there are some. The film had one serious misprinting which lasted almost a scond and the frames before that set of frames were meant to be speeded and were not. That was an error anyone could agree about without trouble. The strip club was a sequence that many could disagree about for a long time. Personally, I thought that given the story and locale it was not real enough to do the show only in English. There should have been a few lines and phrases in Cajun and Creole French and maybe in Vietnamese. The effort was sizable enough that not showing a fish being caught and not having a big enough crowd at the political rally were notable weaknesses.

But the film was more than watchable. It is an entertaining film which offers some real insight into this region and was a big hit with the packed house at the premiere.

Good luck Hebert and company. In this venture and future ventures may you have success.