Mud

So, Mud is an interesting movie. Maybe repeated viewings of RoboCop have made me a little cynical, but I couldn’t believe how genuine and straightforward the titular character of Mud is. He’s out for love, and he needs these children to help him do it. He means everything he says, right down to his name actually being “Mud,” which really tripped me up. When he told us he was trying to rendezvous with his girlfriend, I was all, “Yeah right. Next thing you know, he’ll be a Clarence Boddicker wannabe. I bet he’s big into snorting wine, too.”

The main character, the kid, is the coolest person in the world. I’m not being remotely sarcastic here, I really wish I could have been him when I was 14. Wait, scratch that. I think I’d rather be you-know-who. Anyway, the kid’s dad is the best-acted character in the movie. He was the most believable, in my opinion, but the kid was IMPOSSIBLY COOL and like some of the characters in this movie, talks in ways that nobody ever does in real life. In RoboCop, we get lines like, “He’s a cyborg, you idiot!” and in Mud we hear things like…Well, it’s been awhile since I saw it. Trust me, I was rolling my eyes at a few lines in this movie. In RoboCop, there’s a whole lot of camp, but some of the silliness to the dialogue in Mud took me right out of the otherwise-believable film.

Moving on, they keep calling Mud a “liar,” but aside from being stuck on his old girlfriend, he’s a pretty stand-up dude; not a whole lot of flaws. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was waiting for some twist to happen, where Mud would turn out to be a terrible person. Maybe another Bob Morton, whom you can’t help but love, even though he’s a huge d-bag. Do you remember when he told the RoboCop team to “lose the arm?” That was messed up.

If I’m hard on Mud, it’s only because I really liked it. Maybe not RoboCop-liked it, but it’s a great watch. I thought I was gonna be disappointed with its bloodlessness, but there’s a really nice action scene toward the end of the movie. I gotta give this movie four severed arms up.