The umpteenth movie to use New Orleans, black people and voodoo to make a supernatural thriller.

The lead actress has SOME believability, but the times when she is are outweighed by either unbelievable CGI effects, wooden acting or both.

The scene where the mayor falls through a hole in rotted floorboards (even though they're outside) left a bad taste - Madison is clearly 5 metres away when the mayor falls in the hole, but somehow she has to scramble to not fall through, and you can actually see her surreptitiously push herself back to make it look like she's in peril. And then is miraculously saved by a man who is visibly suffering from silver poisoning.

Also, the plot tie-up wasn't really well explained.

Final thoughts: Meh...

They lost me with some bad acting/directing and who ever edited it should have paid more attention. Plus they played a game of dart not darts but dart only one fricking dart.

Bad Boy Bubby is a film that can shock. This is one of its virtues. Nth (sic) Ward shocks as well but it is not a virtue. There are at least 8 elements to consider when reviewing a film. Nth Ward fails on all of them but let's only consider a handful.

Characterisation - The acting part of the film. James Harvey Ward comes closest to breathing life into Kitch, his character, but the whole reconstructed sensitive new age red neck thing just doesn't quite ring true. He is all flannelette shirts whilst at the same time worrying about Juliette Bennett's shoes getting dirty. Still he is working with what the writers gave him and is sort of plausible. Juliette Bennett has the same shoddy writing to work with but simply can't rise to the challenge. Dialogue delivery is stilted and lacking credibility. It is possible to fill a column about Bennet's on screen presence but let's concentrate on one tell tale trait. She doesn't know what to do with her hands! Scene after scene sees her fumbling with her hands just not quite certain as what to do with them. It's sort of embarrassingly painful to watch and the benchmark of her ability as displayed in this film.

Plot - There is no plot. There are several unrelated and disjointed subplots. These include the supernatural, corrupt business dealings, environmental issues, a budding romance, an inter-racial family drama and so on. None of these is adequately explored or developed and make for a disjointed, fragmented and ultimately unsatisfying whole.

Setting - It's New Orleans for goodness sake! I know that it is post-Katrina but still, it's The Big Easy. Nth Ward could have been set anywhere. Apart from one of the many subplots concerning Voodoo and some footage of a brass band nothing of exotic, sweaty, historical, exciting, culturally rich, mysterious New Orleans makes it on to the screen. New Orleans itself contributes little or nothing to the film and this a sinful omission.

And on we could go.

Nth Ward doesn't present shocks but it is a shocker.

Oh, and to those who have awarded this movie 10s, this is not helpful. It means that you are pegging Nth Ward at the same level as Angel Heart which utilized New Orleans beautifully, starred Robert de Nero and Mickey Rourke at their peak and saw Lisa Bonet break through as an great performer. Angel Heart is everything that Nth Ward isn't. This is an empirical reality but you are denying it.