It’s safe to say that Richard Linklater knows J🎀ack Black more than most d🌌irectors.

In ꦆ , the indie godhead sussed out how to make Black funny over a full film, a rarity for an actor best enjoyed in small doses.

Back with Black for a true-crime curio that mixes mo♑des – comedy, drama, reportage – to pleasing effect, Linklater has delivered something also unheard of: a film where Black is the best thing on show.

Showing rare nuance as Bernie Tiede, a Methodist mortician loved by the people of Carthage, Texas, Black cannily re-purposes his attention-seekingᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ unctuousness to match Bernie’s desire to be liked.

When he moves in with a toxic old widow, Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), it’s as if he needs to prove just how sweet and likeable he is⭕. If even she likes him, w🅷ho wouldn’t?

But maybe his motives are murky: event🎉ually, he riddles her withꦅ bullets. Did Marj nag Bernie over the edge? Was he always up to no good?

Black&🌺rsquo;s slippery surface offers ambiguities and Linklater, riffing on an article by co-writer Skip Hollandsworth, goes beyond that by deploying a Carthage chorus (real folks and actors) to probe Bernie’s enigmas in talking-heads mode.

Semi-comically b🎃ut withoꦇut parody, this docu-drama conceit teases at themes of community and corruption, fact and fiction, faith and truth.

And, wh🎃ile it also loosens the narrative grip, it’s a daring conceit that allows us to meet some larger-than-life characters.

With so much going on, some𒀰 things get lost: MacLaine lacks the air needed to make Marjori🐬e more than a caricature, and we’re left wondering what actually happened.

But it’s easy to overlook𝔉 niggles when🐽 your attention’s being distracted by Matthew McConaughey chewing scenery as a DA .

And then there’s Jack, good enough to suggest he could’ve dug deeper, whi🍷ch results in something unheard of: a film that could&rsq𝓀uo;ve used more, not less of Mr Black.