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"Director: Lee Daniels; Screenwriter: Peter Dexter; Starring: Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, Macy Gray  We literally don&amp;#039;t know where to start. Nicole Kidman peeing on a semi-conscious Zac Efron? Matthew McConaughey face down in a motel room after being - in no discernible order - shagged, chained and sliced to bloody ribbons? John Cusack as a death-row inmate who does a sex-wee in his trousers? Nobody drops a baby in Precious director Lee Daniels&amp;#039;s Southern pulp-noir drama, but the Cannes crowd weren&amp;#039;t short of scenes to gawp at when it screened this morning. Based on the novel by Pete Dexter, The Paperboy takes us to a swamp town in &amp;#039;60s Miami, where Zac Efron helps his journalist brother (Matthew McConaughey) investigate the suspicious murder conviction of a death-row inmate (John Cusack).  Even more eye-catching than the laconic Cusack as a slack-jawed hick is Nicole Kidman&amp;#039;s casting as a fortysomething Barbie saucepot who&amp;#039;s become his pen-pal fianc\u00E9e. Stepping into a role initially meant for Modern Family&amp;#039;s busty Latino bimbo Sofia Vergara, Kidman pulls on a peroxide wig and a slutty, nutty strut for a knockout performance that syncs perfectly with the over-the-top weirdness of Daniels&amp;#039;s movie. She lusts after Cusack, Efron lusts after her. Efron gets stung by a jellyfish, she saves his life by &amp;#039;dousing&amp;#039; his wounds. McConaughey does the most cursory amount of detective work imaginable. His black colleague David Oyelowo and narrator/maid Macy Gray encounter some racism. And 107 minutes later, the credits roll and you ask yourself what the hell just happened. There&amp;#039;s almost no psychology for the characters and just the flimsiest membrane of a story for us. A sweltering atmosphere and a gallery of even more colourful performances, though, make Daniels&amp;#039;s film bizarrely easy to watch. He certainly loves ogling Efron&amp;#039;s tanned, muscular body - Daniels has him spend as much of the film as possible wearing nothing except tighty whiteys. Amazingly, McConaughey only takes his shirt off once. As a storyteller, Daniels seems to have almost no idea what he&amp;#039;s doing, so he just keeps merrily stringing scenes together - from nasty jolts of violence to black comedy, from Kidman bumping uglies with Cusack&amp;#039;s backwater freak to an alligator being gutted in closeup. It&amp;#039;s trash: messy, daft and vivid.  Photo gallery - Cannes Film Festival in pictures:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/cannes-film-festival/review/a383395/the-paperboy-review-cannes-film-festival-2012/>