DVD White River

The content justifies the frequent title change, for "White River" doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts with a con man Brother Edgar (Bob Hoskins) talking to the camera, telling us how he is travelling around the Deep South, under the disguise of a monk. Before you think about that Bob must be a British actor, he goes on, selling cheap socks, with his Mexican partner Molares (Banderas) who pilfers a law book from a library to study something about getting money from lawsuit. All right.

Then they meet White River Kid (who suddenly appears from the river). Kid hijacks their car, but somehow instead of plenty of chances to leave him behind, they come to travel together with him after incredibly clumsy set of events that happen later, finally picking up a local waitress and Kid's girlfriend Lisa (who looks like an exact copy of Juliette Lewis of "Kalifornia" and "Natural Born Killer"). They go to Lisa's home, and they are happy with the strange but kind members of her family. On the other hand, Brother Edgar meets a blind prostitute Eva (Ellen Barkin), to be drawn to her.

To be fair, there is some quaint feeling of the South in the photography itself, and perhaps with more skills it could be more engaging, but the entire cast looks so awfully miscast and it is so obvious that actors don't know what they are doing, that the result became an utter disaster, without making any point or interest for us. The film just meanders among ludiculous situations that are not so funny, dotted with meaningless violence. I don't write any complaint about the actors, but as for Banderas, who co-executive produced the film, I really want to say: what happened to him!? Where is cool Zorro? He intentionally goes for portraying an unusual character (a con man who turns a murderer ... NO!), but this is not what we want. I really miss him in his splendid Spanish film era, and wish that for once he would go back to his roots with masterful guide of Pedro Almodvar.

This is a silly enough story as it is, further bluntened by the sort of genius miscasting that agents and studio hacks usually only dream of.

Unlike their actress sisters, Brit male thespians are not known for convincing American accents. That Branagh fellow in 'Dead Again' defines the malaise. In the flop under discussion, Bob H is meant to be a cheery con-man monk from the deep south.

His inability to hit a single convincing vowel is made further excruciating by the slides into dud South African or, more understandable, his native south London drawl. Painful - and Hoskins being no fool about the roles he can take, the man himself probably chafed and winced just as keenly.