About 90 minutes into Arliss Howard's two-hour adaptation of Larry Brown's short story collection,
Big Bad Love, the movie it's been promising to be all along suddenly appears. For a brief moment, everything clicks: The weary grief of the central character suddenly seems immediate and terrifyingly real, and you're tempted to forgive Howard his extraordinary self-indulgence. Then, as quickly as it came, it all disappears. The screenplay, co-written by Howard and his brother, Paul, pulls together elements from several stories in Brown's book, but draws most heavily on "92 Days," a novella about struggling southern writer Leon Barlow (played here by Howard), whos...
Released:
2002
Rated:
R
Length:
111 mins