Crazy in Alabama, set in 1965, is based on a book that probably should have remained unfilmed, or at least been adapted by someone with a better cinematic sense than its own author, who has never before written a screenplay. To call the big-screen version Thelma and Louise meets To Kill a Mockingbird is accurate in the most literal sense; it's as if someone physically took both of those movies and interspliced them, the way Roger Corman used to buy cheap existing footage, then splice it in with footage of his own and add a voice-over narration that desperately tried to make sense of the resultant collage. Either one of the component stories might have had legs as a fully realized feature in its own right, but, as presented, neither has the time to get beyond the core elements of the aforementioned films.
In the first story Melanie Griffith plays the eccentric (read: crazy, but in a good way) Lucille, who has finally broken away from her abusive husband by cutting off his head. Dumping her large gaggle of children at the doorstep of her beleaguered mother, Lucille sets out for Hollywood with her husband's head stuffed in a hatbox, from which it periodically taunts and yells at her. Even killing him, the story implies, has not yet truly liberated her, but she figures she'll finally be able to dispose of the head (and thus the bonds of domesticity) once she attains her dream of being on TV. Meanwhile it's fine and dandy for her to break the law, because, as in Thelma and Louise, it's all in the name of female empowerment and freedom.
The second story kicks off back at Lucille's mother's place, where the large influx of Lucille's children forces out her nephews Peejoe (Sling Blade's Lucas Black) and his younger brother, who are deemed mature enough to move in with their uncle, Dove (David Morse), who lives above the funeral home that he runs. Remarkably progressive for a white boy in his small Alabama town, Peejoe is stunned when he witnesses the local black kids sneaking into the public swimming pool, then being aggressively ousted when discovered. Inspired by their parents' involvement in the civil rights movement, the black kids stage a sit-in, which is violently broken up by the local racist sheriff, wonderfully embodied by rocker Meat Loaf Aday. (On a side note, doesn't Meat Loaf realize that adding his real last name undermines the power of his nom de rock? After all you don't see any movies starring Sting Sumner or Ice Cube Jackson.) When Peejoe happens to witness the "accidental" death of one of the young boys at the hands of the sheriff, the Mockingbird story line is set in motion.
Although loosely tied together by the fact that the sheriff discovers Lucille's dead husband sans head early on and becomes determined to get revenge on the whole family, the two stories are separated not only by geography but also by tone. Thus any seriousness of the civil rights issue in the small town is undermined, rather than enhanced, by the surreal black comedy of Melanie Griffith and her talking head trying to score a recurring role on Bewitched, and vice versa. Even though the two stories are brought together at the end for an only-in-the-movies total-closure ending, the film feels like two films that aren't closely enough related, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining. When Lucille finally returns to her hometown, for instance, she is suddenly at the mercy of judge Rod Steiger, heretofore unseen, playing an over-the-top Cajun cartoon in direct contrast to Meat Loaf and the other hard-assed lawmen.With Steiger's cuddly yet firm Waterboy refugee running things, one wonders how a mean-spirited racist ever became sheriff and why black people (or anyone else) would have any reason to complain about local justice.
The performances other than Steiger's are strong and convincing. Morse and Black prove to all who haven't been paying attention that they're actors to watch, and John Beasley (The Apostle) puts in the film's strongest performance as the town's black funeral director. Amusing cameos are provided by Elizabeth Perkins, Cathy Moriarty, and Robert Wagner, and it should surprise no one that Banderas's wife, Griffith, gives perhaps her strongest performance to date (though the climax seems blatantly calculated to give her an excuse to tearfully emote). Give Banderas credit for not creating a gratuitous cameo for himself, as most actors-turned-directors would. Just how much credit to give him overall, however, is in question. Even with a cast this good, it's hard to imagine any director being able to do much with such a skimpy, mishmashed script.
