BILLY BOB SEEKS REDEMPTION.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

HERE'S HOW to get a star for your indie film: Make a celebrated short referencing him or her, both glowingly and with knowing humor, and hope he/she takes note.

In Ray McKinnon's Oscar-winning ``The Accountant,'' one character moons, ``That Billy Bob Thornton is the real deal,'' while a more conspiracy-minded character insists, ``They ain't gonna let no real good ol' boys in the moving-picture business - too risky.''

Luckily for McKinnon, Thornton has had the themes of redemption, long jail sentences and bad hairpieces much on his mind - those elements were part of last year's ``Levity'' and recur in McKinnon's just-released 2004 Sundance fave ``Chrystal.''

Thornton stars as Joe, who as the film opens, hurtles a car through the Ozarks' winding roads with wife Chrystal (Lisa Blount, McKinnon's wife) and young son aboard and the law in hot pursuit. The car plunges off the road; we pick up the action 20 years later: Chrystal remains a piece of wreckage, never having recovered from her broken neck or her son's disappearance.

She's become a blase receptacle for lusty locals when Joe returns from a lengthy prison stretch unannounced.

``It's you, Joe,'' Chrystal blankly intones.

``Yeah. I should've wrote, but ...''

``Well ...''

``I didn't know I was comin' till I got here.''

``You hungry?''

``Don't go to any trouble.''

``No trouble.''

Obviously, ``Chrystal'' is moodily laconic and elliptical, and, just as obviously, a more explosive confrontation will have to wait until the film's conclusion.

Walton Goggins, who produced ``The Accountant'' and plays Bad Cop to Michael Chiklis' Worse Cop on ``The Shield,'' co-stars as Joe's lowlife cousin and running buddy. The director plays an even grubbier lowlife with violent inclinations. Harry Dean Stanton appears just long enough to remind us that he was in a much better variation on this film, ``Paris, Texas.''

While some of the low-key atmospherics are effective, and Thornton suffers with exquisite quietude, some important scenes unfortunately are clumsily staged. At one point, Chrystal vaporously announces, ``I can hear the flowers grow, and the sadness of their song just swallers me up.'' If that strikes you as hardscrabble poetry, this is your film. If it feels a mite precious, you're best off looking elsewhere.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

CHRYSTAL - Two and one half stars

(R: sexuality, nudity, drug content, violence, language)

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Lisa Blount, Walton Goggins, Harry Dean Stanton.

Director: Ray McKinnon.

Running time: 1 hr. 46 min.

Playing: Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.

In a nutshell: Billy Bob Thornton stars as a man who returns to his wife after a prison term following the car accident in which they lost their son. A moody meditation on redemption with moments of overdone melodrama.

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Photo:

Billy Bob Thornton comes home after a prison sentence following the car chase that killed his son in ``Chrystal.''