Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2013

Sometimes actors can’t tell the difference between big acting and good acting. In this perspiration-soaked, lurid melodrama from Precious director Lee Daniels, a super-slutty Nicole Kidman, as a prisoner groupie, and a miscast John Cusack, as a feral death row inmate, go for the former (in one scene both reaching orgasm in a prison visiting room while two meters apart), Matthew McConaughey nearly nods off, and Zac Efron mainly takes off his shirt (in one scene he is pissed on by Kidman). So daring it is, and profanely energetic, but overall for some reason bizarrely boring. Trying too hard.