Films promoted as uplifting stories rarely fit the bill. Contrived and sentimental are better descriptions than heartwarming, especially when a film like "Lake City" aims to be a magnum opus of the modern South.

Directed and written by Hunter Hill and Perry Moore, "Lake City" begins with Billy (played by Troy Garity) on the run from an ex-girlfriend's drug dealer, played by Dave Matthews. The ex has run off with coke and left Billy with responsibility for a newfound son named Clayton (Colin Ford). Seeking a safe haven, Billy heads to the home he forgot. From here he has to find the ex-girlfriend, restore his relationship with his mother (Sissy Spacek), rekindle an old romance with an alcoholic (Rebecca Romijn) and deal with a troubling past all before supper. Fortunately, Billy spends his time moping around town until all these problems come find him. "Lake City" is packed with storylines and issues, so much so that a stream of watered-down sub-plots replace a cohesive story. The film takes "Kindergarten Cop," adds in bits of survivor's guilt, alcoholic redemption, country vs. city struggle and throws it against a Southern landscape.

Sissy Spacek fits nicely into the role of a widowed Southern matriarch, especially since Hill and Moore wrote the screenplay with her picture taped up on the wall. She radiates mournfulness in her frequent close-ups, but her Virginia accent comes up short. It's melodramatic like "Days of Our Lives" and sentimental like "The Waltons." Unfortunately, she isn't surrounded by any significant talent. Garity's portrayal of Billy is initially compelling. It works well for the first third of the film, but his anguished do-nothing Hamlet act tires quickly. It's not like there's a lack of emotions for him to explore; Billy has just found out he has a kid and he's back with his childhood sweetheart but all the audience gets out of it is brooding gloom.

Dave Matthews' work as Red, a drug-dealing overweight John Stamos doppleganger, is admirable, especially considering his thin acting repertoire. That being said, scratching the nose for coke and shouting threats would be considered merely competent for any one with serious acting chops. Yet Matthews' skills beat out those of pro Colin Ford. He may have the alibi of being 12, but Ford is atrocious and annoying. He's certainly got the wailing cries and stiff emotions down. The performance could have been refreshing breath innocence amid a cast scarred characters, but Ford botches a great opportunity. He could moonlight as a cheap Dakota Fanning, were he a eunuch.

And scarred characters like Billy and Red are everywhere. It's a perplexing decision since the film romanticizes rural America with lingering shots of barns, foliage and country roads. But the alcohol, graft and casual violence seem at odds with folksy self-service gas stations and country cookin'. The film wavers between two visions of the South, as if chicken fried steak couldn't exist without Jim Bean. Yet Hill and Moore differentiate the whiskey-fueled vice of small towns with the drug-filled skullduggery of urban America. "Lake City" frames the plot around Red's band of accent-less big-city drug dealers invading good ole Virginny. It's Wall Street versus Wasilla Main Street all over again.

But perhaps the film's biggest flaw is its heap of hairy sub-plots. They are paced to keep the story moving but end too quickly, often with a miraculous Deus Ex Machina moment that stops antagonists dead in their tracks. Yet not all the loose ends are resolved by the film's end, making the only breathtaking sight not mother and son reunited but Virginia's stunning landscape.