Poor White Trash

It's usually a good sign when the first line of dialogue uttered in a movie is along the lines of "Man, this summer's gonna fry my scrotum." Too bad that remains the best line in this movie, with the runner-up being a line that's uttered soon afterward: "Don't let the door hit'cha where the good lord split'cha!" Anyway, the plot of Poor White Trash, a film once known as Goodbye Sunrise for some reason, deals with a middle-aged trailer-park sexbomb (Sean Young) who has recently been abandoned by her husband, a pro wrestler with a glass eye (a joke that should be funnier than it is). Determined to get her son Michael (Tony Denman) into college, she initially decides to willfully ignore his petty theft, then begins to actively help him steal the money he needs to earn a psychology degree. Throw into the mix Michael's irresponsible aspiring truck-driver best friend (Jacob Tierney), said friend's sleazy lawyer grandfather (William Devane, wearing T-shirts with slogans like "This face leaves at midnight. Be on it."), a blonde temptress (Jaime Pressly, as the same character she portrayed in the Jerry Springer movie Ringmaster), and an aggressive redneck (Jason London) who used to bully Michael and now sleeps with his mother, and hilarity should ensue, but it doesn't. It's hard to figure out quite why: The cast members are game, and the movie's affable enough, but writer-director Michael Addis doesn't seem to know whether to play the material as broad farce or something slightly more realistic, ending up with very few laughs or audience sympathies in the process. On the plus side: London would be a shoo-in if they gave an award for "Best impersonation of a frighteningly realistic redneck by a Hollywood pretty boy," and you gotta love the exploding beer-can sculpture garden.