At the start of the movie, Jimmy Wayne Collins is writing the lyrics for the song "Noble Things" in his 1965 Ford pickup. Then we see what happened to him three years earlier. He and his brother Kyle and their friends are having too good a time riding around in a pickup truck, and when the cops start following the guys throw things at the cop car.
When the guys get stopped one of the cops is a surprisingly good-looking woman and she wants to arrest them. Fortunately, Claire doesn't necessarily get her way because Pete, the sheriff and the father of Kyle and Jimmy Wayne, shows up and, after a stern lecture, seems to want to go easy on them.
Back in the present Jimmy Wayne's truck finally gives out and he has to hitch a ride back to Texas. Moses, who he meets in a restaurant, is reluctant to pick up a stranger but he finally agrees to. I'm never sure just what the mentally disturbed man with Moses is there for.
We keep seeing flashbacks, and Jimmy Wayne is about to become a big country star. Back in the present, though, he seems to have been a one-hit wonder, and his father is dying of cancer but continues to smoke. So does Jimmy Wayne, who doesn't seem to have learned from his father's misfortune. Claire is acting sheriff and helping take care of Pete. Jimmy Wayne steps in to help as well, and while he would like to have a good relationship with his father at the end, Pete doesn't make it easy. Meanwhile, Jimmy Wayne's ex Amber, Claire's sister, is in an abusive relationship with the father of her young son Brandon. And Kyle is in prison. It appears he shouldn't be there and Jimmy Wayne feels it is his duty to solve that problem.
Jimmy Wayne's life is a country song. And there are a lot of good country songs in this movie, and some not so good.
I don't want to give away anything about the ending, but it doesn't make me happy. And yet it is great.
There are plenty of good acting performances. Michael Parks is one of the standout actors as Pete, while Lee Ann Womack does surprisingly well as Claire. Brett Moses is capable of carrying the movie as Jimmy Wayne. And Ron Canada is great as the truck driver.
It's a worthwhile effort, just as touching and just as miserable as a country song.
