The Paperboy

I watched director Lee Daniels' latest movie The Paperboy today.  This movie, that came out last year, was met with scathing reviews and the words "hot mess" are often associated with it.  I agree that it was a hot mess, but it was also messily hot.  Clearly, Daniels was crushing on Zac Efron (who was really the star here) because there were multiple scenes of him shirtless or wearing nothing more than a pair of tighty whities.  Not that I'm complaining.  Zac is a cute boy with a nice body.  (I know he's a 20-something year old man, but I'm old enough to be his mother [had I birthed him as a teenager], so I'm calling him a boy.)

The Paperboy dealt with a lot of issues:  racism, sexuality, love, family, friendship.  The plot centered around a newspaper reporter (played by Matthew McConaughey) who is writing a story about a convicted murderer (played by John Cusack) and the reporter's younger brother (Zac Efron) falls in love with the murderer's girlfriend (Nicole Kidman).  The central plot was interesting, but what really caught my interest was the relationship between Zac and the black housekeeper (played by Macy Gray).  At times it bordered on being a bit too "Mammy and her master's baby-ish" but I thought it was sweet and Zac and Macy had real chemistry when they were on the screen together.  I didn't buy Nicole Kidman and John Cusack playing poor white trailer trash folks either.  I just didn't.  Nothing about either of them said poor and white to me.  I always felt like I was watching Nicole Kidman and John Cusack.  But, I commend them both for stepping out of their comfort zones and playing against type here.

I really don't understand the hate for The Paperboy.  Given all of the Lee Daniels films that I've seen, I'd rank this one as number one above the overrated Precious and the eye-rolling Monster's Ball.  ("Touch me on the inside."  Ugh.  Please.  Did Halle Berry really deserve an Oscar for giving up her ass to Billy Bob Thornton?  I don't think so.  If you're going to go there with an actor, can't he at least be a top-shelf dude?  But I digress.)  Because of the sheer brutality of some of the scenes in The Paperboy and the subject matter, it will never be a popular movie, but it is interesting and I appreciate Lee Daniels for putting it out there, warts and all.