Though the trailers for Black Snake Moan seem to hint at a dark, sweaty, scuzzy flick featuring a half-naked and emaciated-looking Christina Ricci and a worn out Samuel L. Jackson, reviews hint that the movie is anything but trashy. Ricci plays Rae, a character that’s almost classicly white trash with a bad girl ‘tude and a wardrobe filled with tiny clothes. When her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) leaves for the National Guard, Rae hits the town for a night of hard-core partying. She ends up almost naked and terribly sick, discarded in a ditch by a small farm. The farm’s owner, Lazarus Woods (Samuel L. Jackson) has his own demons to deal with (including a wife who’s just felt him…for his brother) and stumbles across the unconscious Rae. What ensues could have been nothing more than bad movie-making: Lazarus chains Rae to his radiator to keep her from fleeing before she’s well enough to depart, but then decides to keep her chained in order to help her heal her own soul. Aging black man chains half-naked, wasted white girl and holds her hostage? You wouldn’t think Black Snake Moan is a meaningful, evocative tale of friendship and self-love, but that’s exactly what it is. Jackson’s performance is, as expected, powerful, while Ricci shows her empathetic acting talent once again. The movie reigned in three stars from TV Guide, but those sweaty, scuzzy trailers running on TV probably won’t help Moan reach box office success.