Daddy and Them ** (2001, Billy Bob Thornton, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Kelly Preston, Andy Griffith, Jim Varney)– Classic Movie Review 13,082

Billy Bob Thornton’s oddball 2001 comedy drama film Daddy and Them stars Billy Bob Thornton, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Kelly Preston, Andy Griffith, Jim Varney, John Prine, Ben Affleck, Brenda Blethyn, Tuesday Knight, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Writer/ director Billy Bob Thornton’s oddball 2001 comedy drama film Daddy and Them stars Billy Bob Thornton, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Kelly Preston, Andy Griffith, Jim Varney, John Prine, Ben Affleck, Brenda Blethyn, Tuesday Knight, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Billy Bob Thornton and Laura Dern play a married couple, Claude and Ruby Montgomery, who go to stay with the husband’s crazy Arkansas family to get Claude’s Uncle Hazel (Jim Varney) out of prison, jailed for attempted murder.

This weird, awkwardly done black comedy, written and directed by and starring Billy Bob Thornton, is worth a look, partly for Thornton’s offbeat sense of humour and highly unusual personal vision, a bold take on the wayward American family, but mainly for the acting from the notable cast. Thornton and Dern are excellent, and Griffith is outstanding as old Daddy, but Diane Ladd is good value as Ruby’s mother Jewel, and so is Kelly Preston as Ruby’s older sister Rose.

Jewel infuriates and exasperates Ruby by constantly talking about Claude’s past relationship with Rose.

The cast are Billy Bob Thornton, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Kelly Preston, Andy Griffith, Jim Varney, Sandra Seacat, John Prine, Jeff Bailey, Brenda Blethyn, Tuesday Knight, Ben Affleck, Jamie Lee Curtis, Walt Goggins, and Joe McCrackin.

It is Jim Varney’s final film before his death of lung cancer aged 50 on February 10, 2000, released posthumously.

It was shot in Arkansas from August to October 1998 after Thornton’s success with Sling Blade.

It premiered at the Newport International Film Festival on June 6, 2001. But Miramax delayed its theatrical release as ‘not commercial enough’ and finally aired it on the TV network Showtime in January 2003, and then released it on DVD on January 13, 2004.

Daddy and Them is directed by Billy Bob Thornton, runs 101 minutes, is made by Free Hazel, Industry, Shooting Gallery and Miramax, is released by Buena Vista, is written by Billy Bob Thornton, is shot by Barry Markowitz, is produced by Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein and Robert Salerno, is scored by Larry Paxton, Marty Stuart and Kristin Wilkinson, and is designed by Clark Hunter.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,082

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