A reporter (Matthew McConaughey), his kid brother (Zac Efron), a British activist (David Oyelowo), and a death row groupie (Nicole Kidman) fight to exonerate a white trasher (John Cusack) convicted of the murder of a reprobate sheriff in 1960s Florida and get entangled in the grisly case, more so than they initially dared. Coming off the success of Precious, director Lee Daniels follows up with this raunchy crime drama with an overblown performance from Kidman, a severely miscast Cusack, and pretty good turns from McConaughey and Efron. The film is relentlessly unpleasant, but the problem isn't just that this is lurid trash, it's tedious lurid trash.
