Daddy and Them is a movie that I'd have to say wasn't quite worth the wait. Which isn't to say that I didn't like it - it's charming enough little film with a fun cast and a mostly amusing screenplay by Billy Bob Thornton - but after moldering in Miramax's closet for three years, I guess I expected something a little more controversial. Still and all, any movie that offers up Andy Griffith uttering the line "Last night I dreamed that Hazel got corn-holed by some white guys." is worth a look.

Other than the above-mentioned bon mot there's nothing politically sensitive about Daddy and Them. True it's not a particularly flattering portrait of Arkansas rednecks, and it plays pretty much exclusively off of dumb-guy humor, but the film embraces these people more so than it pokes fun at them. Which leaves one to assume that the film was shelved for so long, perhaps because the "Weinbergs and them" didn't think it was any good. Again it's not great, but it grows on you with it's endearingly off-the-wall cast and Thornton's goofy one-liners. You really have to wonder what all the fuss was about?

With nothing but the flimsiest of plots to drive it along, the film succeeds entirely on the strength of it's performances. Thornton plays the central redneck, a flawed, but earnest four-flusher named Claude who is struggling with his rocky marriage to Ruby (Laura Dern) who is endlessly driven to distraction by the fact that Claude was once coupled with her sister Rose, a saucy piece of trailer trash played by Kelly Preston. The bane of Claude's existence is the girls' mother played by Dern's real-life mother Diane Ladd, who makes a habit of pointing out Claude's shortcomings and romanticizing about Ruby's former beaus.

At first most of the characters strike you as unlikable and contrary, as Claude is right away faced with the loathsome prospect of taking a roadtrip with his in-laws (including his Rose). The foursome are soon loaded in the car and on the road in order to lend moral support to Claude's family who are reeling from the recent arrest and imprisonment of his uncle Hazel (Jim Varney). Claude's family includes Daddy (Andy Griffith), Hazel's wife Brenda Blethen, and his brothers played by folk legend John Prine and Jeff Bailey. As the film progresses you begin to warm to these people and on the strength of Thornton's script, they become less and less hillbilly charicatures and take on more recognizable and universal qualities.

Thornton's eye for the absurd amid the mundane is the real star of the film, which is perhaps best displayed in two hilarious cameos by Ben Affleck and Jamie Lee Curtis. The two play Hazel's legal representation and it isn't long before it becomes clear that their problems are more severe than Hazel's little brush with attempted murder. Affleck plays the pussy-whipped new partner in a law-firm run by his much older senior-partner and wife Curtis. Curtis is a hoot here and plays against type in uproarious fashion. She really lets her hair down and runs with this unflattering character.

There are a number of interesting side-stories that run along side the film. Prine is in the process of a successful recovery from throat-cancer and during the shoot Jim Varney is diagnosed with a cancer that would claim his life in 2002. Thornton is working here with the same crew that he used to such glorious results in Sling Blade as well as All The Pretty Horses. And while Daddy and Them doesn't even approach the brilliance of Sling Blade, it's certainly much better than the still born would-be epic All The Pretty Horses. Griffith makes the most of his title character and it makes you wish he'd been written many more roles like this in the years since his salad days in Mayberry.

Despite a few stretches of dead space, Daddy and Them works because of Billy Bob's vision and his ability to conjure magic out of dust. And for fans the DVD is a real treasure as it contains a five-minute scene where Billy Bob steps into Carl Childers shoes and tears a swath through the cast. Watching John Prine struggle to keep a straight face seated next to Billy Bob as he revisits Carl is absolutely priceless.