Terrible title as it has little to do with the movie and a terribly tepid film directed and jointly written by Billy Bob Thornton.Robert Duvall is Jim Caldwell. A Great War veteran and a patriarch of a well to do Alabama family in the late 1960s, who spends his time visiting automobile accidents which the local police are happy to oblige him with.Duvall has three sons who served in World War 2. Skip (Billy Bob Thornton) and Carroll (Kevin Bacon) seem to spend their time drinking beer, smoking dope and arguing. Both have to deal with the scars of the war. Bacon is the wild one, even though he has a son at college, he is anti Vietnam war protester and regularly gets in trouble with the police that upsets his father. The conservative Jimbo (Robert Patrick) seems to to be only responsible one. Their sister Donna is married to an ex football star but seems to be promiscuous.The Caldwell's meet the Bedford family from England. The reason being that Jim's former wife has died and wants to be buried in Alabama. She has been living in England and was married to Kingsley Bedford (John Hurt) and he is accompanied by his two grown up children from his first marriage.Of course there is some hesitancy between the two families because of the strained past but as they get to know each other we find out that Hurt's children are also have a dysfunctional relationship with their father which results in the daughter getting involved in some kinkiness with Skip and the son having a liaison with Donna.The film is a shambles, it kind of rambles without much focus. There is some good acting especially from Duvall and Hurt whose characters bond as they go to see Mansfield's wreck in a store. However the film itself is a bit of a car crash.

'JAYNE MANSFIELD'S CAR': Four Stars (Out of Five) Billy Bob Thornton directed, co-wrote and co-stars in this family drama film set in 1969 Alabama. Thornton plays a World War II vet in a family of military veterans lead by their father, a World War 1 vet (played by Robert Duvall). The family must deal with the unexpected death of the mother, who had lived with another family in London. The movie also stars John Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Robert Patrick, Katherine LaNasa, Ray Stevenson, Ron White, Shawnee Smith and Frances O'Connor. Thornton co- wrote the film with Tom Epperson and the two have written multiple other movies together (like the critically acclaimed indie crime drama 'ONE FALSE MOVE'). It's Thornton's first directing job since 2001's 'DADDY AND THEM' (which I haven't seen). It's not as classic as 'ONE FALSE MOVE' or Thornton's breakthrough hit 'SLING BLADE' but it is a competent and entertaining character study. Thornton plays Skip Caldwell, a 50-year-old World War II vet who still lives at home with his father Jim (Duvall). Jim is a veteran of World War 1 and Skip's brothers Carroll (Bacon) and Jimbo (Patrick) are also World War II vets. Jimbo never saw combat though. He's jealous of his brothers for that and still lives with his father as well, along with his wife (Smith) and son (Marshall Allman). Carroll lives with his son (John Patrick Amedori) and spends a lot of time doing drugs and protesting the war (which causes conflict with his father). When the boys' mother dies more conflict is created when her London family comes to town for the funeral. Jim has hated the man, that stole his wife (Hurt), for many years and finally meets him. Jim's daughter, Donna (LaNasa), also comes to town, for her mother's funeral, with her husband (White) and two daughters (Carissa Capobianco and Karli Barnett). The movie has a lot to say about war and 'peace vs. violence' (as a resolution to conflict) and does a good job of representing both sides of the issue (I think). It's full of heated debates and shows how the topic (as well as war itself) has affected so many. Thornton once again plays a mentally disturbed man child. His character is definitely hard to relate to but he's good in the role. Duvall is a scene stealer and I thought LaNasa was just too beautiful and stunning to look away from (I haven't seen her in anything else but she's very lovely and likable in this). Thornton's directing is always interesting to watch and his writing skills appear to be pretty decent. The film is just a character study, with not a lot actually taking place in it, but I thought it was still pretty entertaining and involving.

I was a bit shocked at how much negative press Billy Bob Thornton's latest effort has received in the mainstream critical media. It's been called racist, homophobic, grating, and stereotypically one-note. Perhaps these reviewers couldn't take the time to appreciate the delicate patina glazed onto the top of this heavy Southern Gothic brew, not only by some stellar star turns, but from Thornton and Tom Epperson's sly, knowing script that bravely refuses to villainize any of the array of characters, no matter how crass or pig-headed their behavior first appears.I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical of Thornton when he first appeared with the break-out "Sling Blade," even though the short it was culled from was anything but slight. I thought he'd be one of these rural "artistes" who falls back on sentimentality and clichéd characters when he didn't have much to say. Jayne Mansfield's Car, however, proves that glib assessment was dead, dead wrong. The strongest aspect of this film is it's script, which does what every extraordinary movie does well: drops you into another place and time that---at first glance, anyway---you'd ordinarily shrug your shoulders and walk away from, then gives you every reason you shouldn't: it's populated with people who are confused, conflicted, and multi-faceted to the point where they don't seem to recognize each other any more, even after living in the same house for decades.The casting is impeccable and Thornton has an incredibly light-touch with all of them. Robert Duvall does what he does best: providing the anchoring figure of Jim Senior with an authority and gravitas that he can express with a lift of an eyebrow. His three sons are wrought over a nice spectrum of angst: Thornton's Skip, the ne'er do well middle son who did everything right but was always a bit too "off" to be dad's shining star. That honor went to Jimbo (Jim Jr., a ferocious Robert Patrick) who played closer to the mold but never saw combat as Skip and Carroll (Kevin Bacon) did, thus considering himself a failure. Skip and Carroll live with scars and resentments from their own tours of duty in WWII and Vietnam, respectively and their anti-war sentiments continue to draw them further from Duvall, in every sense of the word.Even though the crux of the drama revolves around the return of Duvall's wayward recently deceased wife (Tippi Hedren, a pretty darn good corpse), who divorced him for Englishmen John Hurt 15 years before, the canvas of this film is really about the tortured relations between fathers and sons, and the cost of war and death and what it "means to be a man." The War angle is particularly intriguing in that it plays out in the heart of Alabama in the late-sixties, where the malingering odor of Vietnam melts into the residues of a century of warfare, the star of which is the ghost of the Civil War.The culture-clash aspect is amusing and well-played, but not even remotely why you should see the movie. The script ensures you know the characters so well, that all that formulaic hicks-meet-Brits stuff quickly goes by the wayside.Thornton and Epperson's script gives each character a suitable bravura moment and most hit them out of the park, in particular Thornton, in a touching monologue delivered to Frances O'Connor in the forest and Bacon, whose hippie malcontent faces off with Duvall with quiet dignity and aplomb.This is not a film to hang on for forced drama, but it's one you'll have a difficult time turning away from and an even harder time leaving, from the place where you so unceremoniously were dropped.

Terrible script, awful directing, excruciatingly sloooowwww and has nothing to offer but pain, misery, awkwardness, suffering and stupidity.The editor should be banned from the business and Billy Bob... please, stop... just stop. Stick to acting.I call this an actors movie because it's all about actors trying to impress other actors. They obviously didn't make it for entertainment value. It wasn't made for the movie-going public. Its sole purpose is to be an Oscar vehicle for B.B. Thornton.Sorry Billy Bob.... I'm not a voting member of the Academy. If I were, I would have to give you a thumbs down for blatant pandering to your professional colleagues while ignoring the ticket-buying public.