White Lightnin’
Year: 2009
Runtime: 92 mins
Language: English
Director: Dominic Murphy
In West Virginia's Appalachian hills lives the “dancing outlaw” Jesco White. After a troubled youth in reform schools and an asylum, he learned mountain dancing—a tap style to banjo music taught by his father D‑Ray. Following D‑Ray’s death, Jesco dons his tap shoes and brings the raw routine on road, turning his past into a striking performance.
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White Lightnin’ (2009) – Full Plot Summary & Ending Explained
Read the complete plot breakdown of White Lightnin’ (2009), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.
Jesco White Edward Hogg is the last of the West Virginia mountain dancers. He is the son of D. Ray White Muse Watson, the greatest mountain dancer of all time. Ever since Jesco was a child, D. Ray tried to keep him on a straight path—one that would put him on the right hand of the Lord. Dancing was just one way to keep Jesco from losing his soul. But from a young age, there was temptation drawing him away from D. Ray, away from the dancing. There were the voices in his head, tormenting him. Maybe that is why Jesco loved to get high.
Hooked on sniffing gas, glue, lighter fluid, and airplane cement, Jesco was constantly finding himself in trouble with the law. He landed in the reform school more than once, and it was here that he spent most of his adolescence, left to endure the horror of the voices.
Years after his time in reform school, Jesco had made the best of staying true to his daddy’s word. He tried to stay as straight as he could, and used the dancing to do so. But the devil has his ways too, and soon Jesco was back to his old vices. On his way around the south, dancing and performing in whatever local dives he could, Jesco met the woman of his dreams—four-foot three-inch Enid Carter Carrie Fisher. Jesco renames her Percilla. An off-beat pair, the two managed to keep all their wickedness inside the family.
Long Kirk Bovill and Davie Raymond Waring—the two men responsible for dragging D. Ray years earlier behind their pickup until he was dead, are released from prison because of a trial error. It was as though God were testing Jesco again, tempting him with the taste of revenge. And so this temptation is satisfied, and Jesco got the revenge he craved, brutally torturing and murdering the two. After accidentally killing the officer who comes to arrest Jesco, he takes to the woods. Jesco hid himself in the cabin deep in the West Virginia hills previously inhabited by the preacher, whose voice Jesco constantly hears in his head. Jesco encounters God, cutting and chopping himself until he dies to expiate himself of his sins.
Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:47
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