Starring: Tye Sheridan, Matthew McConaughey, Jacob Lofland
Neckbone (Lofland) an Arkansas teenager finds a boat lodged
in a tree on a small unpopulated island out on the rivers. When Neckbone and
his friend Ellis (Sherdian) go exploring the boat, they discover that it’s not
completely abandoned and is actually serving as a home for a mysterious
stranger known only as Mud (McConaughey) who is waiting to hear from his local
sweetheart, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). Keeping Mud a secret and seeking to
reunite him with Juniper, Ellis and Neckbone begin to realise that Mud is a
fugitive on the run.
Released at a time when Matthew McConaughey seems to be
going on a reinvention from playing sly pretty boys into maturing Southerners
with a dark underbelly (alongside the likes of the somewhat similar film, The Paperboy
(2012)), Mud is also a stripped-down rural crime thriller equally reminiscent of
Winter’s Bone (2010) and whilst McConaughey provides a stable character for the
story to revolve around, it’s with Ellis that we spend most of our time with
played with skill beyond his years in Tye Sheridan. However, whilst the
performances are strong, the film lets up a lot of slack for the most part,
only surging to life in its action-packed conclusion; a problem exacerbated by
the film’s over-reaching run-time 130 minutes. However, the scenery looks great
and this is a good film, it’s just not the kind of film which suits such a
length.
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