John Sayles’s laid-back Honeydripper is tuned to the rhythms of ‘50s bluesmen and the menace of racism

Directed by John Sayles. Starring Danny Glover and Gary Clark Jr. Rated PG. Opens Friday, March 28, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

The playlike yet atmospheric proceedings of this latest effort from John Sayles (Lone Star, Matewan) are set in 1950 Alabama—a place that resembles 1905 in too many respects. Young African-Americans are ready for freedoms long promised by the constitution and Abraham Lincoln and soon to be held out by the nascent civil-rights movement. But an old-timer like Danny Glover’s Tyrone “Pinetop” Purvis, who runs a roadside tavern called the Honeydripper, just wants to hang on to what he’s got. Lately, the creaky blues singers and piano men he hires have been losing customers to that new juke joint down the lane, where recorded music and cut-rate booze fill the nights with noise and bursts of violence.

Of course, there’s always extra menace in the form of a local sheriff—played by Stacy Keach with the lazy smile of a well-fed shark—who demands a cut of every business in the district. Anyone who crosses the street funny (as in “while black”) can quickly turn into free labour for the local cotton-plantation owner, who is also the county judge. This happens to an itinerant northern musician called Sonny (up-and-comer Gary Clark Jr.) who wanders into town. Sonny plays a homemade axe, and because Pinetop is counting on a New Orleans star called Guitar Sam to save his bacon, well, you kind of figure that everything will come together in one big night at the Honeydripper.

Along the way, Pinetop also checks in with his wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton), best pal (Charles S. Dutton), and a blind, almost mystical bluesman (Keb’ Mo’). The tale is mostly an excuse for Sayles to capture the rhythms and manners of speech (and music) from a time now drifting away, and its pace will require patience from viewers expecting big plot revelations. But the director’s affection for the characters and their rootsy music is infectious. The movie carries you back to a time when a black man couldn’t even hold his head high, let alone run for president.