From Deliverance to the new Straw Dogs, elitist Hollywood hasn't shown rednecks any respect. Eli Craig's good-natured, sometimes funny, somewhat gory morality tale about prejudice and miscommunication probably won't change that. True to formula, it begins with a van full of "college kids" heading for a camping ground in deep hillbilly country. Pulling into the general store, they spot a couple of local yokels and suspect them of being inbred psychopaths. In fact, they are Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), a pair of kind-hearted bumpkins who just want to say hi to a pretty coed. The college kids unwittingly settle in near the pair's cabin, and a comedy of gruesome errors ensues, with Chad (Jesse Moss), the frat boy rabble rouser, encouraging violence, and Allison (Katrina Bowden), the psych major, urging negotiation. An allegory of our times, with a belabored message of tolerance punctuated by impalings and other grisly deaths.
