On Screen

Have you ever been at home watching a Lifetime Original Movie and
thought to yourself, “Damn, this is good and all, but why can’t I be
paying nine dollars for this experience?” Well soldier on,
intrepid reader, for your prayers have been answered in this festering
pile of drama.

Lake City is a story of redemption set in a small Southern
town, wherein a son and mother have grown apart after an ambiguous
family tragedy, but now the son must return to the small Southern town,
his own bastard son in tow, to escape drug dealers. His return forces
the estranged pair to face their shared demon and confront the son’s
ineffectual drug-dealy attackers. There are some dubiously addressed
side plots involving the terribly cast Rebecca Romijn and a murky,
possibly nonexistent alcohol problem. Sissy Spacek gives a competent
performance as the weathered but wise matriarch of an empty farmhouse,
as sensible as she is strong and stoic. (And if that character doesn’t
sound like a big bucket of clichés to you, then I envy you for
not having seen as many shit movies as the rest of the universe.)

Spacek does what she can with the stilted dialogue, but it’s sadly
obvious that she just doesn’t care. She says her lines at, more than
to, her chunk-headed son Billy, played by the David
Schwimmer–esque Troy Garity—an actor who has, up until now,
toiled in obscurity, and judging by this film will thankfully return to
it. The film’s only satisfying moments are when Dave Matthews (yes, THE
Dave Matthews, cast as a midlevel drug dealer) is set on fire and later
shot in the head. That’s gotta be worth at least six bucks.

Lake City is billed as a “searing Southern drama,” but don’t
be fooled. It’s really just country-fried crap.