This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Terrible title as it has little to do with the movie and a terribly tepid film directed and jointly written by Billy Bob Thornton.Robert Duvall is Jim Caldwell. A Great War veteran and a patriarch of a well to do Alabama family in the late 1960s, who spends his time visiting automobile accidents which the local police are happy to oblige him with.Duvall has three sons who served in World War 2. Skip (Billy Bob Thornton) and Carroll (Kevin Bacon) seem to spend their time drinking beer, smoking dope and arguing. Both have to deal with the scars of the war. Bacon is the wild one, even though he has a son at college, he is anti Vietnam war protester and regularly gets in trouble with the police that upsets his father. The conservative Jimbo (Robert Patrick) seems to to be only responsible one. Their sister Donna is married to an ex football star but seems to be promiscuous.The Caldwell's meet the Bedford family from England. The reason being that Jim's former wife has died and wants to be buried in Alabama. She has been living in England and was married to Kingsley Bedford (John Hurt) and he is accompanied by his two grown up children from his first marriage.Of course there is some hesitancy between the two families because of the strained past but as they get to know each other we find out that Hurt's children are also have a dysfunctional relationship with their father which results in the daughter getting involved in some kinkiness with Skip and the son having a liaison with Donna.The film is a shambles, it kind of rambles without much focus. There is some good acting especially from Duvall and Hurt whose characters bond as they go to see Mansfield's wreck in a store. However the film itself is a bit of a car crash.

Thornton & Epperson failed miserably on this one. Same old stereotypical Southern bullshit. Totally unbelievable. Terms like "back in the day" came into America's vernacular in the 90's, not in this period piece. One wonders why "Bucktooth Billy" has to be so skin crawling gross i.e the masturbation scene. The script could have easily been written by a couple high school kids making no one laugh but themselves. Thornton vowed he would never direct again after super-bomb, "All The Pretty Horses". Too bad he broke his promise. Obviously a "one trick pony", ("Sling Blade") which also, by the way, set his home State of Arkansas's image back 50 years. We have no use for him here in his home State. His infamous radio interview on a Canadian radio station,(YouTube), showed us all what a dick he really is. Kevin bacon is great, even in this piece of crap. And for once Robert Duvall didn't talk with his hands

Great actors, awful directing, they call them movies because they are supposed to move, this one doesn't and it has the wrong music and poor uneven cinematography.Billy Bob, stick to acting. This movie is not entertaining. Oscar and this movie in the same sentence is an insult to Oscar.I'm not a voting member of the Academy. If I were, I would have to give it two thumbs down for blatant pandering to the academy while ignoring the ticket-buying public.Some good music from the 60's might at least give you the feeling of the era this movie is supposed to be in and moved things along a little better. I have never known a WW2 veteran that was Hippie, Kevin Bacon's part was unbelievable. Ron White was Ron White.

Duvals performance as the introspective, typical unemotional parent of the 50's/60's was masterful. Bacon gave his usual great performance as the hippy son. Thornton's southern ignoramus and the American brash personality clashing with the proper brits was a great storyline. Ron White's performance was great...he played himself. The guy who played the liquid terminater is great too... I loved it. Several story lines within the same family all moving forward in a similar direction. The setting is in the south. It is unclear exactly where. I didn't need to see Billy Bob Thornton naked, but I guess it was important to the storyline.. LOL. "she could take it right up to the gills" is one of billy bobs quotes...