Honeydripper Movie Review

John Sayles’ “Honeydripper” reveals one of our finest writer director’s completely out of synch with what it was that made him such a great filmmaker. The skeleton of the story is wonderful: it’s Alabama in 1950 and the Juke Joint “The Honeydripper” is just about done for. The tasteful blues headliner (Dr. Mable John) is way past her day and the next store joint is bringing ‘em in with a sped up sound delivered by a juke box. The owner/piano player Pine Top (Danny Glover) doesn’t like guitars and he can barely keep the power in The Honeydripper on. His wife’s increasing religion finds odds with being married to the proprietor of a juke joint. His stepdaughter is coming of age and both Pine Top and his wife want a better life for her. And if he doesn’t come up with the money by Saturday, well, you know.

Meanwhile a young stranger comes to town with a guitar case. This stranger (Gary Clark Jr.) will turn out to be quite the Chuck Berry (this is a good thing) imitator, but never once is much of an actor. The small town sheriff (Stacey Keach) rude and crude, putting blacks into indentured servitude just for walking down the street isn’t so scary when he’s so boringly portrayed. There is a mysterious blind bluesman (Keb’ Mo) who plays the guitar all right but his part is hokey as, well, the rest of the movie. A beef brews between two cotton field workers. It’s obvious and stagey. So is the whole thing. A deft touch it lacks. John Sayles perfected his beautiful filmmaking formula with 1997’s “LoneStar” a film about a small town in Texas. About race, love, family, small town politics…and it all played perfectly. “LoneStar” is the kind of film that reveals itself slowly. The kind of film that works for story and for character, for intergenerational, racial, and familial commentary as well as being a fascinating whodoneit. And “HoneyDripper” has potential. Its opening chords are struck just right as two southern black boys play with their homemade non noise making instruments before sneaking into the juke joint. Our stranger’s stage performance is musically very exciting if not ultimately over-staged as well.

So, like “LoneStar” “Honeydripper” attempts a kind of slice of life with infinite layers waiting to be peeled. A slice of life that includes the birth of rock and roll and black life in the south in the 1950’s, heavy soulful (and gospel) pathos balanced with healthy doses of humor. Religion, race, music, modernization, the South, cotton field and juke joint culture. All great topics. But “Honeydripper” is sometimes hard to watch. How is it so uninterestingly shot and edited? How do actors like Charles Dutton and Danny Glover fail so miserably? This is not a play, but they overact like it is one. The film is shot and edited with about as much touch as an episode of “GunSmoke.” With a re-writing of the script…an edit, a toning town of the acting, and some inventiveness with color and angle, this film could have been another Sayles classic. Instead it’s a sign that he has lost his touch. Like a once great ball player who has lost his step, Sayles has been left behind. As blind to the errors of his film as his hokey blues player is to the sky.

Story: The subjects of the story are an A. The execution is a kind C.

Acting: It’s not the actors. I’ve seen them work better, but the acting is also a generous C -.

Visuals: Understated is fine. Boring is…well…a C.

Originality/Innovation: Many of the topics have never found there way on film. This story, these characters, have so much potential. C

Enjoyability Grade: The music is killer. C +

Overall Grade: When I heard that John Sayles had made a film about this stuff I almost wet my pants…in the end it’s a C -