The Dirty South

Great acting by Willa Holland, Wayne Pere and Shane West. Willa and Wayne really carried the movie. Some kissing, heavy petting, no real nudity. Some violence. The songs were great as well with artists like Jovin Webb, Spencer Brunson, Dorothy, Kori Lynn, Tyler Forest, Mus Gillum and Andrew Vogel. Many scenes felt real....human emotion. As in all movies, even 'based on true story' genre, suspension of disbelief helps yet real life is often stranger than fiction. The real downside is no mention of JESUS as the answer. Otherwise, believable tale of folks doing the best they can the best way they know how with what they have. Desperate measures for desperate times. Would watch it again.

I think this movie was great!!! I loved the story line and the feeling of the movie... Everyone is doing wrong, but you're cheering for the one doing it for the right reasons... Definitely a movie I can watch more than once... I loved seeing the Natchitoches Christmas Festival of Lights in the movie especially since it is something my family has always enjoyed attending... The music was also fantastic and fit very well... the actors did a great job portraying the characters... the accents were on point and sometimes that's hard to get right for movies about the south... I definitely recommend giving The Dirty South a watch.

So right away, this movie was not easy to come by for a French Canadian like me. Not available on any digital platform either as a rental or "part of a subscribtion", the only way was to import this on physical media from the USA at full price. And forget about a french audio track.. this movie has none at the moment of writing this.

Its not normally the type of movie i watch. I prefer action movies, even when they are lower budget, as long as there is decent hand to hand combat and/or gun fights but this movie is not really about this. There is a few "fights" but its really a story driven movie.

The reason why i wanted to see it is because of Willa Holland, wich i really liked in Arrow, otherwise i wouldn't had bother to watch it, probably not even on Netflix, solely based on synopsis and cover.

That said it surprised me ! The story was kinda dark in places but without being overly dark to the point of being depressing. I was invested enough in the characters to want to see where it would go. Willa in particular was pretty good in her role. I have not seen her in a lot of movies, but thats a very different role from Arrow.

Even tough its a story driven movie and it does not pack a lot of action, i never felt bored. The characters being interesting enough, the music rather good, the color scheme fitting well with the tone of it, i just enjoyed it.

Now would i watch it again? Probably not. Because what interested me was seeing how the story would go, and i know now. So i don't think its a movie to "own" really, but its a pretty decent rental for sure, especially if you like Willa as i do.

So i would definately recommand that, a rental, if you are able. Hopefully for Canadians, it get a release here at some point and maybe even a french audio track, altough i fear it will be handle by VVS and their "B-team" aka the same 7-8 peoples who dub every low budget release, no matter how fitting the voice are to the characters or not.

And when i say low budget, i really mean as this movie probably didn't cost a ton to make, base on locations, special effects etc. But everything is well done, so it does not feel cheap like for instance a Steven Seagal movie of modern times.

Give it a chance if you can.

Absolutely loved The Dirty South!

From the authentic performances, beautiful scenery, fantastic music, and relatable storyline, I was wonderfully surprised.

First time director Matthew Yerby orchestrated this stellar cast to create real life performances not characters.

Dermot Mulroney is fantastic as the big bad in the story. My favorite character from My Best Friend's Wedding was nowhere to be seen.

Shane West was perfect as the dreamy drifter grifting his way through small towns.

Willa Holland was amazing as the female lead.

I'm used to seeing Willa in spoiled rich girl roles and her character Sue Parker is the furthest one could get from that. She is a badass without the cliche that generally accompanies this type of role.

Highly recommend!

This film is a fantastic example of telling interesting, underserved stories from places like the American South and Midwest. I'm absolutely sick of films about the one percent class living in massive cities on the coast with trivial, "rich-people-problems." This was a huge breath of fresh air, and a truly entertaining step into the gritty and dirty, yet magical world of the south. Yerby has talent for making seemingly archetypical characters into deep, relatable humans. This most likely like had a decently small budget compared to most films - but not a second of it felt cheap or compromised. Kickass story. Kickass soundtrack. If you didn't enjoy this, that's your loss. Can't wait to see what Yerby does next.