The Paperboy

2012
5.7| 1h47m| R| en| More Info
Released: 05 October 2012 Released
Producted By: Lee Daniels Entertainment
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

As investigative reporter Ward Jansen and his partner Yardley Acheman chase a sensational, career-making story with the help of Ward's younger brother Jack and sultry death-row groupie Charlotte Bless, the pair tries to prove violent swamp-dweller Hillary Van Wetter was framed for the murder of a corrupt local sheriff.

... View More
Stream Online

Stream with Prime Video

Director

Producted By

Lee Daniels Entertainment

Trailers & Images

Reviews

toonyjakes The Paperboy is an odd movie. I watched it, noting that Lee Daniels of "Precious" was directing a great cast, and didn't really know what it could be about aside a murder. Well I was right, that's all it is about. Which would be cool if it had any kind of story.Plot- Its basically about this wannabe writer and his brother (Efron/Matthew Mccon.....) trying to determine a prison inmates (Cusack) innocence. Along with the brothers is the inmates girlfriend, and a legitimate journalist (Oyelowo). There are some things that draw you in, mainly out of curiosity rather than obligating you to listen and watch intently. Really, you'll end up thinking you missed something, but the story is just flat, nothing to dazzle you at all and this is coming from someone who gets entertained by watching water boil. (pardon my spelling of names) Acting/Characters- The acting is flawless in this film, Cusack has some odd moments that could have been more intense, but thats it. May be the best part of the film, yet thats not why I watch. It just happens to aid, or break a film.Writing- The dialogue is weird, yet not bad. The weak story really could have used some memorable conversations at the least. Sometimes characters contradict themselves, making it hard to understand who they are or what they might do. I didn't sympathize for them at all aside Efron, and even in the film he's just written as a horny teenager.Quality/Style- The Paperboy is edited in kind of a cool way, alot of psychedelic transitions n what not. Yet sometimes the editing is almost annoying, such as chopping a frame forward in time while maintaining the same continuous audio. Its another aspect of this film that I think tries way too hard to cover for the lame story. The score isn't bad, kind of cool. Overall, I only wrote this because it was a perfect example of a "gray area" movie in a sense that it's not good, or really all that bad. Its got just enough to be a decent film, and I can't say I would recommend it. I know that after the silly, short ending, I vowed to never watch it again. Once again, the absence of an eventful story really, really killed it.
MovieCritic98 This is a terrible movie. It is amazing that the big-name stars in this movie signed on for this piece of garbage. Technically, Nicole Kidman did a good job of playing her character, but it is all for nothing. Garbage script in, garbage movie out. Don't waste your time on this one. I regret having to give one star when it deserves zero.
Roedy Green I thought the paperboy would be a steamy story about some southern temptress seducing the paper boy. But it is quite different. Paperboy means somebody who handles the details of legal papers.It took several days to watch this film. I had to keep stopping it because it grossed me out so much. The director is like a little boy who enjoys hacking the heads off rats to shock his viewers.The characters are repulsive, alcoholic and trashy. Kidman plays a bleach blond gum-chewing aging bimbo. Every time I saw her, I would feel nauseous.Some of the scenes that catch you unawares and punch you in the gut include: 1. a rape that goes on forever 2. guts spilling out of an alligator 3. a bloody throat slitting for no apparent reason. 4. a gay S&M scene gone wrong, almost killing a participant. He is so beaten and bloodied you cannot tell who it is. 5. a masturbation scene in a jail where a woman ripped her panties to let an inmate look at her vagina, while others look on not knowing what to do. 6. people being unbelievably rude to each other.Between these electric shocks the movie meanders around like your parent's super 8 movies.Everything is dirty, smelly, mouldy. You just want to get away and get a shower.The protagonists are so repulsive, there is no sadness when two of them are murdered. There is only one tolerable character, played by Zac Efron. He is besotted by an utterly trashy woman 20 years his senior. The relationship makes no sense which the object of his desire has the sense to notice. It is revolting like everything else in the movie.I don't see the point of this movie. We don't even get any feel for what motivates the characters.
James Hitchcock "The Paperboy" deals with that classical Hollywood theme, the fight to prove a man's innocence. Like a number of other films on this subject, such as "Intruder in the Dust" and "To Kill a Mockingbird", it is set in the Deep South, in this case Florida in the year 1969. Unlike those two films, however, the accused man is white. Hillary Van Wetter, a poor- white-trash swamp dweller, has been convicted of the murder of the local sheriff, Thurmond Call. Van Wetter certainly had a motive- Call, whose methods of law enforcement were to say the least uncompromising, had earlier been responsible for the death of Van Wetter's cousin- but Ward Jansen, an idealistic journalist, believes the evidence unsatisfactory and begins a campaign to prove his innocence.Jansen is assisted by his black colleague Yardley Acheman, his younger brother Jack and an eccentric woman named Charlotte Bless who makes a hobby of writing to convicted prisoners and has fallen in love with her pen-pal Van Wetter despite never having met him. Ward and Yardley are reluctant to have Charlotte on their team- she strikes them as mentally unbalanced- but need her assistance as only she can persuade Van Wetter to cooperate with them. (He has fallen, if not in love, then at least in lust with the attractive Charlotte). A further complication arises when Jack also falls for Charlotte.The accused in "Intruder in the Dust" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" were both quite clearly innocent. In "Just Cause", another Florida-set drama about the death penalty, we initially believe that the accused is the innocent victim of a miscarriage of justice but a sudden plot twist makes it clear that he is actually guilty. In "The Paperboy" the question of whether or not Van Wetter is guilty of the murder of Sheriff Call is always left ambiguous. Nevertheless, even if he is innocent of this particular crime we are never left in much doubt that he is a nasty piece of work, capable of extreme violence. Mind you, his self-appointed defence team are hiding a few secrets themselves. Charlotte is just as mad as Ward and Yardley believe her. Ward himself is a closeted homosexual, at a time when this would have been neither socially nor legally acceptable in most American states. Yardley, who is black, has been posing as an Englishman but later confesses that he is a local man, claiming that Floridians are more likely to accept a black man who "sounds like James Bond". Actually, Yardley's fruity upper-class English accent does not sound much like either Sean Connery (Scottish) or George Lazenby (Australian), who were the only two actors to have played Bond at the time the film is set. He sounds rather more like Roger Moore, but Moore's first outing as Bond was not to be until 1973."Intruder in the Dust" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" were both made from a clear liberal political position. "Just Cause" seems to start out from a liberal position and then to shift to a conservative one, but this is probably inadvertent, the result of a too-clever scriptwriter not appreciating the effect of his too-clever plot twist. "The Paperboy" also seems to shift from liberalism towards conservatism; the ending, in which Van Wetter murders two of the people who have helped to save his life, attempts to murder a third and ends up in the electric chair, seems like a redneck conservative's wish-fulfilment fantasy about interfering liberal do-gooders getting their just deserts. I suspect, however, that this ending may have been intended as black irony rather than as a rare attempt by Hollywood to proselytise on behalf of the Tea Party."The Paperboy" is not a subtle film. It's about as subtle as a nuclear war, an over-the-top slice of deliriously melodramatic Southern Gothic which combines gory horror with what the TV announcer coyly referred to as "scenes of a sexual nature". It's not a film which should be watched by those of a nervous, squeamish, prudish or Puritanical disposition. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a film which should not be watched by anybody. Those with strong stomachs may well find something to enjoy, such as the performance of Nicole Kidman. The lovely Nicole received an unusual award nomination from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, namely "Actress Most in Need of a New Agent". Now I've often thought myself that Nicole desperately needs a new agent, generally after seeing her in rubbish like "Moulin Rouge", "Practical Magic" or the remade "Stepford Wives". Yet even though a depressingly large part of her output consists of unfunny comedies or formulaic thrillers, she is at least not afraid to tackle something challenging or different when she gets the chance, and few roles could be more challenging than Charlotte, who manages to be completely bonkers and yet desirable enough to enrapture a handsome young man considerably younger than her. There are other good contributions from Matthew McConaughey as the tormented Ward and John Cusack as the viciously feral Van Wetten. The film is strong meat, but it may be something of an acquired taste. 6/10