Steven Knight‘s Serenity (Aviron, 1.30) seems like a January release, all right — James M. Cain meets Body Heat meets Matthew McConaughey‘s Jimmy Buffet character, operating a boat on a Caribbean island called Plymouth (**). It feels like sexy trash — diverting if semi-disposable. At the same I’m intrigued by anything from Knight, who wrote the respected Eastern Promises; he also directed and wrote the masterful Locke.
I’ll always have a problem with McConaughey’s southern drawl. I can never completely understand what he’s saying, and the only solution, it seems, is to watch him with subtitles. Plus he’s starting to look his age — his pretty-boy aura is slipping away.
(**) Pic was actually shot east of Madagasgar, on an Indian Ocean “island nation” called Mauritius.
