You won't be disappointed!

Sorry, this movie sucks

Brilliant and touching

A lot of fun.

The Badge is a bit of a mixed bag. It's quite interesting as a ground-level look at the culture of corruption in pre-Katrina Louisiana and there's some human realism in its story of a simple man dealing with his complicated life. But the mystery that runs through this film is really put together out of spit and bailing wire and the story as a whole starts out reasonably smart, then gets dumber and dumber and dumber as it goes along until hitting an ending that's like something a 4th grader would come up with.Darl Hardwick (Billy Bob Thornton) is the good ole' boy sheriff of LeSalle Parish in rural Louisiana. He's got an alcoholic burnout for a father (Tom Bower), an ex-wife (Sela Ward) who's the county District Attorney and a daughter that dresses like a goth stripper. Darl likes to drink and then sleep it off in his truck. He's also more of a peace officer than an agent of law enforcement, meaning he sees the job of sheriff as being more about things like chasing off the kids who are loitering in front of the local grocery store and not about investigating crimes. As sheriff, Darl is also a cog in the parish's political machine. He's answerable to The Judge (William Devane), the richest and most powerful man in the local Democratic Party, but Darl is free to indulge in whatever little graft he can.Darl's life in LeSalle Parish is disturbed when he and his deputies discover a dead woman in a ditch. They're disturbed even more when the woman turns out to be a transgendered man. Darl isn't all that interested in finding out who killed what he considers a "freak", even after the man's wife, Scarlett (Patricia Arquette), shows up demanding justice. When The Judge makes it clear that he wants the whole thing hushed up because it might affect his plans to open a new casino, Darl is ready to let the whole matter drop. But then he finds out the Democratic Party is kicking him off the ticket and running his black deputy for Sheriff. That makes Darl a little more interested in what happened to his transgendered murder victim. Then Darl gets framed for statutory rape by the local powers-that-be, and that makes him very interested in finding the killer.Teaming up with Scarlett and getting an assist from his estranged brother (Thomas Haden Church), Darl uncovers a sordid tale of political intrigue that reaches all the way up to the governor himself and the even more seedy reason for the murder of Scarlett's husband. By this point in the film, things begin to get very stupid, very quickly, so I'll stop right here.I enjoyed the way The Badge depicted the commonplace, unquestioned venality and crookedness of life in LeSalle Parish. Louisiana has been renowned for its relaxed attitude toward ethics, good government and the law for long time and this movie shows you what that means at the local level, with public officials who don't think twice about enriching themselves and always make sure to spread a little around to keep everybody else happy. LeSalle Parish is kind of like a bayou North Korea; a closed society that runs things the way they've always been run and doesn't cotton to outsiders.Darl Hardwick is a part of that world and it's a part of him. He's not exactly happy, but he's comfortable and he doesn't think more than that is possible. Billy Bob Thornton does a good job portraying Darl with honesty. He's not a good person or a bad person. He's somebody who does moderately good things and moderately bad things without knowing enough or caring to distinguish between the two. Darl is the sort of man you condemn when looking at him from the outside, without ever being able to understand him.Unfortunately, as the movie rolls on it casts Darl as more and more of a generic noir hero. That robs the character of his uniqueness and Thornton appears to become bored with the role and just goes through the motions. None of the other characters are given enough to do to make any impression on the audience, one way or the other.And the mystery of the transgendered murder victim is…well, pathetic is the best word to describe it. It's the classic case of having every clue point in one direction and then throwing in a twist that completely changes things. The problem is that the twist involves people simply telling Darl what all the answers are while he stands there with the proverbial thumb up his butt. And those answers are things that neither Darl nor the audience could have figured out before hand because they're pulled in out of left field with nothing shown in the movie to support them. And the one question that isn't specifically cleared up for Darl is one the audience has figured out before the film is halfway over.The Badge does have a smattering of female nudity and Patricia Arquette in a thong, which added to its other virtues should have made this a decent movie. But its flaws are so noticeable, that it's impossible to know how anyone will respond to this film. I like and I can imagine someone else enjoying it even more. However, I can also imagine someone thinking The Badge is garbage and being justified in thinking so. So if you're thinking about renting this DVD, flip a coin. You might get lucky…or you might not.

Three issues dealt with in this movie. (1) Who murdered Mona, the transsexual? (2) Will the sheriff, Billy Bob Thornton, overcome his revulsion for queers, men who dry flowers, women who like to wear spike collars, people of either sex who lust after cold sauerkraut, and other assorted wimps and pre-verts sufficiently to come to be truly in love with Mona's wife, Scarlett (Arquette)? And (3) whatever is going to become of all these corrupt politicians? The movie is nicely shot on location in Louisiana. The direction is competent, with only a few quick shots to dizzy the viewer. And the plot has a lot of texture to it. We honestly get the feeling that everyone in the parish knows everyone else. When a truck overturns and spills its load of shoes along the side of the road, Thornton makes several phone calls to the folks to come out and get some free shoes! Thornton's performance is really quite good. His morals are no better than they should be, perhaps. He shags his deputy's wife in the back seat of her own car. He hands out spilled shoes recklessly. He cheated on the wife who now despises him and has virtually no contact with his daughter, to whom he is irrelevant. Yet he comes across as a laid back sort of Southerner, easy going but a man who will stand firm when he feels he's being given the business. Not that he's one of those super action heroes. Thornton himself is no muscle man, and a black guy in a New Orleans strip club easily subdues him. Patricia Arquette is such a cool blonde she seems positively Icelandic. And what eyes! It's impossible to put the color of her irises into words. Sela Ward is beautiful, classy, and voluptuous, and Thornton is a cretin for having cheated on her. I enjoyed William DeVane as the Southern judge too. DeVane is always reliable, and it's fun to see him as a genial and corrupt old pol, hobbling around on his walking stick. But it's Thornton who makes the movie, and he's very good.Who killed Mona? (SPOILERS) Mona was shot by a factory reject with an IQ in the negative numbers and a moral code to match. The killing was simplicity itself. Almost everything else layered on in between tells us more about the community and its politics than about the murderer. Simply put, in the beginning, Thornton finds Mona's dead body. At the end he discovers that the overweight garage owner has a hole drilled through the wall of the lady's room so he can watch what goes on. When he discovers that Mona is anatomically male he goes berserk and Thornton gets him. The end.But that brings us to issue numbers two and three. The movie draws a clear line between the "righteous" members of the community and the "oddballs" who live in New Orleans. Thornton at first is between the two but is repelled by hookers, no matter how sympathetic, amused when he finds that the victim's body has a penis. He has kicked his gay brother out of the Parish in order to be elected sheriff. By the end, it turns out that unfettered righteousness is more dangerous than open paraphilia. The reason Mona was in the Parish in the first place is that she had been brought from New Orleans to attend a stag party given by the politicians. And she was killed by a man who believes her murder was justified because "she shoulda never used the lady's room." Thornton rethinks his morality and comes to accept the oddballs for the human beings that they are.I don't mean the movie is that preachy. Nobody makes speeches about it. It simply shows us Thornton's greater tolerance, which makes it possible for him to rebond with his family and with Arquette. It's a decent flick, although people who think homosexuals are sick, pre-verted, and deserving of death are unlikely to find it enjoyable in any way.

I'm a big fan of Billy Bob. I usually like Patricia Arquette too. They do a decent acting job in this flick. The bad guys are pretty bad. The first two thirds are suspenseful and interesting. The premise is original. You really identify with Billy Bob. But at about the beginning of the last third it becomes a mess really rapidly. The script tries to resolve all the issues in about a minute. It's very confusing. Some of the ending is just a cop out. In conclusion, see it if you like Billy Bob. Considering it was "made for TV," it was better than you would expect. I don't recall their either of them has done TV before.

I loved the start of this movie. I think that's what carried my interest through to the end. The middle and endings were not as strong but did not disappoint me.I also loved the acting, especially Billy Bob's. There's something about his demeanor and appearance that is interesting despite what role he is playing.