Cheap Poor White Trash (DVD) (Sean Young, William Devane) (Michael Addis) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Poor White Trash

Lots of Problems but Lots of Laughs
Welcome to Sunrise, Illinois, a town that plays host to a significant contingent of lower class, trailer dwelling, criminally prone hillbilly types loving referred to as "Poor White Trash." Starring such recognizable names as William Devane, Sean Young, and Jaime Pressly, the film focuses on the antics of the Bronco and Lake families, with several other individuals floating around on the periphery. Linda Bronco, played quite well by Sean Young, only has one wish in her miserable existence of one night stands and fly by night jobs: she wants her son Michael to go to college at the University of Southern Illinois to major in psychology. After yet another fight with her washed out professional wrestler husband, Linda must step in and take control of Michael's life if her dream is to be realized. Regrettably for Linda, Michael and his friend Lenny Lake find themselves in a heap of trouble after swiping a six-pack of near beer at the local convenience store. This thoughtless action throws Michael's plans for school into turmoil, thereby requiring Linda to lead her son and his friend on a robbing spree for tuition money and enough scratch to hire a decent lawyer to fight the robbery charge. Along for the ride is Brian, the son of the local sheriff who Linda picked up in a bar and who now wishes to take part in the antics.

To disentangle her son from the robbery charge, Linda and her son turn to Lenny Lake's grandfather, Ron Lake. The elder Lake is a strange character, a one-time felon who now works as a big shot lawyer. Ron just married the gorgeous but dangerous Sandy, and the two live in Ron's trailer adorned with a garden of sculptures made out of beer cans. Ron is as crooked as they come, though, and to get his help Linda and her trio of would be criminals must agree to split their take with Ron and his wife. Everything goes down the drain from this point, as the four rob a retirement home and a local eating establishment. They get the money, but they get double crossed too, an incident which leads to hilarious trailer trash retribution involving trailer stealing, fireworks, automatic weapons, and duct tape.

There are more problems with "Poor White Trash" than there are pluses. The organization of the film is a disaster, with scenes that run too long, sloppy camera work, and a script often bogged down with too much detritus. What this movie desperately needed was an excellent editor, someone to go through the scenes and cut out all the awkward dead weight. About half way into the movie, I started to suspect that somebody, maybe a studio, mucked around with the finished product and left us with a movie that is more often a hodgepodge of scenes than a seamless film. Another big minus here, at least for me, was the relegation of Danielle Harris to a minor role as Suzi (the one with an "i"), an employee at the local restaurant robbed by Bronco and company. Harris, who in my opinion could never appear in enough films, gets marginal screen time. At least we get one good shot of her smiling face, and I guess that is better than nothing.

Despite these problems, "Poor White Trash" works on many levels, and works spectacularly. I would be completely insane if I did not mention the stellar performance of William Devane as Ron Lake. I have never liked Devane as an actor, probably due to his appearance in too many of those unctuous "movie of the week" productions. But here he shines like the sun. Devane has all of the best lines of the film, none of which are reproducible here because they usually deal with romantic entanglements in prison. His outfits are hilarious, his law office, located in a mall, bears the name "Land o' Law," and his philosophy about beautiful women is a scream. Devane chews the scenery in this film and it is a better movie because of it. Devane's role along with numerous effective sight gags, helps propel "Poor White Trash" to easily watchable levels.

The DVD throws in a commentary by Sean Young and director Michael Addis, as well as some production stills, three trailers for three obscure films I never heard of, and cast and crew profiles. Add in these extras with the actual film, and you have yourself an effective way to burn a few hours. "Poor White Trash" will never win any awards, but it ultimately delivers with good performances and some good gags.

---

Interesting....
I saw this movie at 3am so perhaps my review is a little bias but I thought this was a "clever" film. It was interesting to see Sean Young acting again and her performance was pretty good. This film at times was just plain wierd in the same vein as Pecker but this film's plot wasn't so convoluted as Pecker's. This film is more a novelty piece in your DVD collection.

---

You won't want to miss A LINE!!!
From the moment I first saw this film, I was drawn in to it. The entire film is hilarious and each and every time I see it ( and I have seen it over and over)I find yet another bit of hilariously hidden gems, whether it's the scenary, the great looks of the characters or the witty lines, you can easily miss, while in the middle of laughing at something else.
Once, when I watched this film with my best friend, we rewound the same scene over and over again, laughing harder and harder each time!!!
Take a chance and you will be so glad you did!!! BUT POP YOUR POPCORN AHEAD OF TIME YOU WON'T WANT TO LEAVE THE TV!