The Sure Hand of God

Well, holy moly, people, what do you expect? It's Erskine Caldwell. For those of you who know only the greatest hits from the literature of the 1920s to the 1960s, Caldwell's books "Tobacco Road" and "God's Little Acre" put white trash misbehavior on the map and helped determine the way Yankees saw white Southerners: depraved, ignorant, and crazy, and the stereotypes haven't necessarily changed.

I enjoyed seeing Gail O'Grady and Jennifer Morrison hamming it up as just the sort of depraved, ignorant, and crazy Southerners you expect from Hollywood. I didn't see the movie from the beginning, and can only assume from the bluesy chords on the soundtrack that the movie is set in the Delta, although that's not really Caldwell country. But, of course, where this sort of movie is considered, I wouldn't be surprised to see hillbillies, Cajuns, and the Florida Everglades all in the same film.

As for the portrayal of Christians-- Every character and character type in the movie was so broadly drawn that it was tempting to see it as tongue-in-cheek parody. Definitely a movie that is so bad it's fun.