A delicious movie with authentic east Texas atmosphere, deranged hilarity, and a bravura performance by Jack Black. Shirley MacLaine's botox makes it hard for her face to express emotion, but she's more than compensated for by the "townspeople" interviewed throughout (about 50/50 actors and real Carthage, TX residents who sat for Richard Linklater's camera). One such townswoman, whose name isn't listed on IMDb because she's a real local but who's featured in the trailer (she says "a lotta people woulda shot her for five dollars"), more or less steals the entire movie. Some of them nearly push Matthew McConaughey off the screen, though he paints the courtroom scenes with a wonderful veneer of slime.
Bunches of fun.
