Product Details

• Actors: Lisa Blount, Ed Corbin, Colin Fickes, Johnny Galecki, Walton Goggins
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: First Look Pictures
• DVD Release Date: August 30, 2005
• Run Time: 106 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009PVZSM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,746 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Chrystal" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

CHRYSTAL - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorb this film about crime, betrayal, loss, guilt, redemption, December 18, 2005

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chrystal (DVD)

This story is so much about the setting, in the Ozark Mountains, where growing pot is one of the few ways to make enough money to keep your land, where men drink and drive as long as they avoid the downtown area, where rednecks clear out the fish fry for a fight in the parking lot, and where a bluegrass jamboree is a way to while away a humid evening. The scenery is beautiful, but everyone's isolation is tragic. The bar fight is one of the best scenes, with no professional moves, just a heck of a lot of slapping, kicking, and stumbling. There is nothing suave about the bar fight. The realism was beautiful, especially as Thornton's character let his arch enemy get a riled up while Thornton himself remained steady.

The movie starts out slow, but the action in the middle is powerful, and the ending is a sucker punch to the gut. The characters are vivid and true. This is a haunting tale about loss, guilt, and redemption.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Southern Tragedy, October 19, 2005

By 

Wing Lee "filmfan" (Toronto, Ontario) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chrystal (DVD)

This movie is kind of similar to Undertow and Monster's Ball. It deals with violence, crime, tragedy, forgiveness, redemption, and reconcilation. It's a great vehicle to showcase the relatively unknown Lisa Blount who managed to upstaged the rather low-key Billy Bob Thorton. Blount plays the title character who was traumatized and physically damaged by the car accident that took the life of her little boy. Her husband Joe(Thorton) was to blame for the tragedy, because he was smuggling drug in the car, and ended sentenced to prison for twenty years.

During the time when Joe was absent, Chrystal lives alone with her dog Precise in an isolated farm, and she occasionally offers herself sexually to the local boys. She's constantly haunted by the death of her son, and still angry at Joe when he came home. They no longer connect emotionally and sexually. At one point, Joe ask her," Am I still your husband?" She responded angrily and said,"If you just want my P****, just come and get it....". He's trying to seek her forgiveness and start over again, but the worst thing was that she can no longer have children.

The local marajuana dealer named Snake(Ray McKinnon, director and writer of this film) tried to persuade Joe to grow marajuana on his farm, but he declined, and things get nasty and physical between the two. Meanwhile, a travelling blind musicologist named Kalid is in town to gather research for his book, and becomes friend with Chrystal who used to be a good singer. This subplot allowed the film to feature many beautiful songs that resembles Songcatcher and some of the Bluegrass music featured in You Can Count On Me. Things gets even more ugly when Snake and his gang chased Chrystal and Kalid into the woods and want to gang rape her. Fortunately, Joe was hiding in the woods and rescued them. Will Chrystal be able to reconcile with Joe and let go of the the shadows of the past?

Overall, the performances are very good, and the actors delivered their lines with impressive southern accent. This film is obviously very low budget, one would wonder how they could get Billy Bob Thorton to be in it. I loved the soundtrack, and I also was quite touched by Lisa Blount's performance, despite not having seen her previous works.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars hypnotic and engaging, October 16, 2005

By 

cookie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chrystal (DVD)

I admit, I rented this DVD because I am a Billy-Bob fan, but I watched the whole rather slow moving story because I was immediately grabbed by the music. I have read the above reviews and agree with the positive ones so I won't repeat what they said. I only want to add that the (local) music is haunting and hypnotic, a good representation of that 'high lonesome' mountain sound that graces "O brother..."and "the songcatcher". If there were a soundtrack I would buy it.