"Billy" (Vincent Gallo) gets let out of prison and promises to bring his new wife to meet his mother. An hasty promise for two reasons. First - well, he hasn't actually got a wife and second - he is desperate to pee. Intent on sorting out the latter problem, he encounters "Layla" (Christina Ricci) whom he promptly thinks can solve his other problem, so he frog marches her to her car and hopes that she - by now at gunpoint - will agree to help him out. Risky strategy, that! Can it work out for him? Well what now follows is an entertainingly quirky road movie that sees the two gradually bond whilst we learn about both of their rather complicated pasts. It's not just his mother (Angelica Huston) that he wants to visit; he also has a score to settle with a bookie (Mickey Rourke) but maybe, just maybe, his new companion might adjust his priorities? This is a well paced, intimate movie and there is a good, almost magnetic, dynamic between Gallo and Ricci. The story is lively and engaging offering us an offbeat love story that is, though maybe a touch predictable, based more on two characterful performances rather than cheesy sentiment (of which there is none!) and gooey love scenes as they head for their own kind of redemption. Coffee and doughnuts anyone?
