Cockfighter

Strangely-affecting portrait of a man who cannot find redemption from his personal flaws - particularly a big mouth that leads him to take a vow of silence for most of the film’s length. Filled with dead-pan humor, this is a tale of guy who lets his actions speak louder than his words yet, since he is a cockfighter, you constantly wonder what his actions really mean. Oddly-enough, many women are drawn to him no matter his cruelty to them or to his many cockerels – who serve to visually-express the purposeless violence within him. As a narrative and a description of the paradoxical White attitude of love for animals (that is often non existent for other human beings); combined with a sadistic willingness to visit painful deaths upon those same animals (in the interests of sport and gambling), this movie has few equals. Here is the conflict at the very heart of a White culture which decided, centuries ago, that gold is more important than love.

Oates is fine , but the characters and subject matter just didn't hold my inrerest.