Traveller MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +2 Content: -3

Traveller introduces us to an unusual breed of crooks, an Irish gypsy band called the Travellers that migrated to the southern United States over 100 years ago. The tightly-knit cult continues today, traveling through rural areas cheating the naive and lonely. Bokky (Bill Paxton) can convince a farmer or a widow that he can reroof the barn or repair the drive quickly and economically. Not until the clean-cut, polite stranger has left in a cloud of dust with a pocket full of cash do his customers discover they have been victimized. One day Pat (Mark Wahlberg), the son of a former Traveller, appears at their campground, telling the group that he has brought his father's body back for burial. Pat's father was ex-communicated when he married an outsider. Bokky steps in and offers to let Pat learn the ropes by traveling with him. The two embark on a journey that hooks them up with an old man named Double D (James Gammon), who can out-scam even the Travellers. When Bokky falls in love with one of their victims, Jean (Julianna Margulies), he risks his and his cohorts' lives to help her. With little humor and shallow characters, this depressing story will probably travel in and out of theaters rather quickly.

The Travellers' strict code of conduct allows no outsiders in, even though it results in cousins marrying cousins. Members must steal anything they can turn into cash. Although the group doesn't advocate violence, the film turns ugly when Bokky, Double D and Pat think they can out-con some professional gamblers with mob connections. A man dies from a bloody beating and a little girl is terrorized when professional killers break into the house, followed by shooting deaths and the house set on fire. Jean and Bokky have two bedroom scenes, with no nudity but sex implied. In one, she dances sensually before they fall into bed. Even more offensive is the continuous foul language, including 17 regular profanities and 69 obscenities. Bokky is romanticized as a hero because he wants to help Jean, but stealing for a good cause is hardly heroic. This dark story contains far too many disturbing elements.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: October Films, 45 Rockefeller Plaza, New York NY 10111