Southland Tales

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Sean William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405336/

As a warning, this review contains spoilers.

When I picked up this film I knew absolutely nothing about it apart from my first glance at the cover. I knew it had the rock in it and remember hearing someone mention Justin Timberlake, but apart from that I went in blank. The cover itself made me expect some psychological thriller about a murder or something which I guess was not too far off.

I found out after watching that this is a Richard Kelly film. The same guy who wrote and directed Donnie Darko which makes a lot of sense since it’s basically the same concept just with a new setting and characters. While this and Donnie Darko share the same basic plot (a rift in the fourth dimension causes some characters to travel through time and ultimately tie together a series of loosely connected storylines), Southland Tales is very different. Donnie was serious and thought provoking, Southland is a joke.

I’m not saying this in a necessarily bad way since I really enjoyed the film, it’s more that through the entire time I was watching the movie I had a strong feeling that Kelly was laughing at me. He was mocking me with his writing. Was he trying to be serious? In which case this film has some of the most atrocious writing I’ve seen in recent years, or was that the point? Was it some sort of commentary on our war and porn obsessed society or did he truly think he was being profound?

I’m guessing it was a joke. The movie features “Hustler” sponsored tanks, a commercial for an SUV that get’s up on 2 wheels to “mount” another SUV in what has now caused me to forever shudder at the sight of a muffler, and a porn star turned reality show host who likes to make sex jokes and discuss “deep” topics like Teen Horniness. It’s got to be some sort of joke.

At the same time, even as a joke the writing felt bad. I imagine Kelly’s writing process for this film went as follows: “Hey, so I have all these amazing ideas for individual characters/scenes/shots but they’re all suited for different genres and stories. I really wish I could use them all but it just wouldn’t work.” But then he goes ahead and shoves them all together anyways. I admit that some of his shots were phenomenal; the entire domestic violence scene and the scenes leading up to and following it were especially amazing to watch; however it made the entire film feel convoluted. Did he really need to add in a music video? It was a nice break to be sure and it was pretty well made but it seemed very out of place. I did like seeing Timberlake take a breather from his role that, up until that point had comprised completely of looking crazy and quoting revelations. I like Timberlake; he’s instilled in me newfound respect ever since he hid his downstairs mix-up in a present.

The acting was very good, with Dwayne Johnson and Sean William Scott stealing the show, and I’m pretty sure Wallace Shawn has played the same role in everything I’ve seen him in since The Princess Bride. The directing, cinematography and camera work was top notch and I would watch it again just for that but the writing was where I felt it fell short. It had its up moments like the domestic violence scene but the majority of the time I just did not enjoy anything the actors said, even if they did deliver it extremely well.

This review is getting rather long so I’ll end with a few observations that I came out of the film with. Apparently terrorists are middle aged woman who keep fingers in bowls and have large amounts of computer equipment, police batons are badass, every director at some point does an homage to the last supper, and there is such a thing as too much T.S. Eliot. Also, that ending felt a lot like fight club, just with a better facial wound and he doesn’t go through with the suicide.

As a whole the movie was confusing for me. It wasn’t the plot that I didn’t understand it was more that for the first half hour or so I did not like the film that much. Even after I had decided that I liked it (around the 45 minute mark) There were scenes that would still cause me to rethink my view. After all that however, I came out of the experience with a positive view.

I would recommend this film, especially if you enjoyed Donnie Darko and/or want to see some great cinematography and directing.

~ by Hobbes on March 27, 2008.