***When the most despised man in town is murdered on Main Street***

This could be categorized as Southern Gothic, but it’s also a gritty real-life drama and murder mystery. Unlike movies like, say, “Macon County Line,” which was falsely advertised as a true story in order to hype it, this one is actually based on a real-life happening, the 1981 execution of Ken Rex McElroy in Skidmore, Missouri, which is an isolated town located in the northwest section of the state, a two-hour drive north of Kansas City.

The two big changes this movie makes are that the story is switched from the Midwest to the Deep South and, secondly, the real-life slaying happened in broad daylight, not after midnight. The antagonist is played by W. Earl Brown, who looks like Meatloaf in his late 30s, if he were dressed as a biker. With the outside detective from the Attorney General’s office being black, it naturally brings to mind “In the Heat of the Night” from 35 years earlier. I also couldn’t help think of “A Violent Separation” from sixteen years later.

Talia Shire has a peripheral role as a retired schoolmarm while Alicia Lagano is on hand as the antagonist’s too-young wife. Although the latter’s character is between 13-16yo, depending on the scene, she was actually 22 during shooting. I note this because she appears in a couple of tame nude sequences.

The flick effectively captures the sweltering heat and mundaneness of a one-road town buried in the backwoods, too far off the interstate to matter. There’s a notable sequence involving Rubie & her boyfriend in one of those gigantic Southern Live Oak trees of which the Deep South is known.

It runs 1h 29m and was shot in five weeks during the summer of 2001 in Cassadago & Lake Helen, Florida, which are located 35 miles northeast of Orlando, as well as Montverde, which is 25 miles west of the city.

GRADE: B