Country music superstar Toby Keith’s first motion picture plays to the singer’s hometown roots and music in Broken Bridges. Toby plays Bo Price, a down-and-almost-out country music has-been (which is far from where he is in real life) whose brother gets killed in a United States Army training accident.

Called back home to Tennessee for the funeral, he runs into an old flame, Angela “Angel” Delton (played by the beautiful Kelly Preston) and the sixteen-year-old daughter he’s never met. Angel’s brother died in the same training accident. These are problems that draw an audience in every time, and I was hooked at once – even though I figured I knew how it would all turn out.

I live in Toby’s hometown of Moore, Oklahoma, but – like Toby – I grew up in a small Oklahoma town before moving here. We share some of the same values, and those values are brought to life in the movie. Anyone who’s grown up in a small town where everyone seems to know everyone else’s business is going to find a resonance in this movie. The small buildings, the narrow streets, the quiet places only a few minutes out of town that have history for generations of children — those are the places the film takes you to, and it gets them all right.

Director Steven Goldmann has a long history with country music. He’s done a couple hundred music videos that won awards, including Faith Hill’s “This Kiss.” He knows the people and the places that are depicted in the film, and he knows the audience that would fill the theater seats for a Toby Keith movie. Cherie Bennett, one of the writers, has written a string of young adult books that capitalizes on these kinds of emotions and pasts, and has worked as a writer on Smallville. With them backing Toby’s play, the movie sails along effortlessly.

When you grow up in a small town, no matter where you go, you’re going to confront the past on every street corner. Not just your past, but your family’s past as well. A certain kind of history lives on in small towns, far-reaching and never forgotten, fueled by mixtures of pride and guilt. Those are the issues that the characters have to deal with.