TV & Film Review

Hick

Feature Film | Derick Martini
By Jeff VanVickle

A wandering indie that never shifts out of neutral.

There are few things more frustrating than a film that lacks focus; say what you will about 2007's awful and controversial drama Hounddog, but you can't deny that director Deborah Kampmeier at least brought a clear vision to the table. Derick Martini's Hick, a road movie based on the novel by Andrea Portes, suffers from a meandering and inconsequential plot, not to mention a discomforting emphasis on the sex appeal of its 14-year-old lead, Chloë Grace Moretz. The rising starlet plays Luli, a nearly unlikeable tween armed with a .45 revolver who escapes her degenerate Nebraskan family (featuring an all-too-brief cameo from Juliette Lewis) and heads for Vegas, meeting all sorts of irrationally explosive characters along the way. Hick's failure to connect with its audience has nothing to do with the talented cast; Moretz and Blake Lively turn in perfectly adequate performances, with My Week with Marilyn star Eddie Redmayne going out of his way to breathe life into the stale script. But no matter how often the acoustic guitar strums or Bob Dylan pops up on the soundtrack, Martini never convinces us that his film holds any weight against its coming-of-age contemporaries.

TAGS: abuse, adaptation, coming of age, drug use, gun, Las Vegas, Nebraska, road trip, running away, teen,

FACTS: Released: May 11, 2012 (Phase 4 Films); MPAA: R; Duration: 95 minutes; Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Blake Lively, Eddie Redmayne

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Hick Trailer