Found the DVD of this movie at my public library. Truth is, I was attracted to it because in my youth, the 1960s, our little football team played the Waterproof football team in the state playoffs for the smallest schools. Waterproof is located in Tensas parish, along the Mississippi river, not too far southeast of Monroe in north Louisiana. Much of the filming was done in N.C., but much of the outdoor scenes were filmed in Tensas Parish.
Aside from all that, this is a fine, small budget movie. This may be the best Burt Reynolds performance, where he plays Eli Zeal, a Jewish store owner in D.C. that gets a superficial gunshot wound from three black kids attempting to hold him up after closing one night. The youngest boy is Thaniel, and his mother Tyree (April Grace) is a cab driver who comes upon them, sees the bleeding man, and promptly drives all three of them to her ancestral home in Waterproof. For those keeping score, that is just under 1100 miles.
Eli is going to be OK, but the real story revolves around events when Tyree was growing up. She had never come to face them, and instead left home 15 years earlier, and lost contact with her family. Her mom (Ja'net DuBois), her big brother 'Big' (Anthony Lee, who was killed in L.A. the next year), her grandfather Sugar (Whitman Mayo who died just after filming), and her mentally challenged brother Natty (Orlando Jones). It is a bit ironic that a white guy wrote and directed it, but it seems true to the location and the times. The whole movie and the ending has a "redemption" theme running through it.
SPOILERS FOLLOW. When she was a young girl she and the local plantation owner's son became very friendly, and claim in present time that they had been in love, but the times weren't ready for a black/white romance in Louisiana. As her brothers were chasing the white boy, Tyree threw a rock that hit Natty, he fell and hit his head, she was the cause of the accident that incapacitated him, but older brother Big had always taken the blame, and the lasting wrath of mom. Tyree had to come to grips with all this, tell her mother the truth, set Big free, and become a whole person. Eli helped her work up the courage to tell everything, in return he didn't tell the police the whole story of why they ended up in Waterproof. There was a symbolic Baptism ceremony, including Tyree and Thaniel, as the movie ends.
Aside from all that, this is a fine, small budget movie. This may be the best Burt Reynolds performance, where he plays Eli Zeal, a Jewish store owner in D.C. that gets a superficial gunshot wound from three black kids attempting to hold him up after closing one night. The youngest boy is Thaniel, and his mother Tyree (April Grace) is a cab driver who comes upon them, sees the bleeding man, and promptly drives all three of them to her ancestral home in Waterproof. For those keeping score, that is just under 1100 miles.
Eli is going to be OK, but the real story revolves around events when Tyree was growing up. She had never come to face them, and instead left home 15 years earlier, and lost contact with her family. Her mom (Ja'net DuBois), her big brother 'Big' (Anthony Lee, who was killed in L.A. the next year), her grandfather Sugar (Whitman Mayo who died just after filming), and her mentally challenged brother Natty (Orlando Jones). It is a bit ironic that a white guy wrote and directed it, but it seems true to the location and the times. The whole movie and the ending has a "redemption" theme running through it.
SPOILERS FOLLOW. When she was a young girl she and the local plantation owner's son became very friendly, and claim in present time that they had been in love, but the times weren't ready for a black/white romance in Louisiana. As her brothers were chasing the white boy, Tyree threw a rock that hit Natty, he fell and hit his head, she was the cause of the accident that incapacitated him, but older brother Big had always taken the blame, and the lasting wrath of mom. Tyree had to come to grips with all this, tell her mother the truth, set Big free, and become a whole person. Eli helped her work up the courage to tell everything, in return he didn't tell the police the whole story of why they ended up in Waterproof. There was a symbolic Baptism ceremony, including Tyree and Thaniel, as the movie ends.