Southland Tales (15.)
Directed by Richard Kelly.
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake. 145 mins
It’s part old testament, part Rocky Horror, part MTV Spring Break, part Fahrenheit 9/11, part bad David Lynch, part The Spy Who Loved Me, at least three parts a rehash Katherine Bigelow’s pre-millennial LA thriller Strange Days, and exactly no parts Donnie Darko.
After the slow burning success of his elegantly controlled debut movie about suburban time travel and alternative universes, writer/director Kelly (still barely in his thirties) has thrown all his toys into the pram with this sprawling, undisciplined sci fi/ satire about the world ending in Los Angeles. Other than being very weird, it’s as different from Donnie Darko as is possible to imagine.
As an example of the indulgent, megalomaniac, different second film follow up the classic debut feature, it’s the most extreme since Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, which flushed away all the reluctant good will he had earned with Easy Rider.
The tone oscillates wildly: comedy, music videos, biblical prophesy and shoot outs all come tumbling onto the screen in a haphazard fashion. The feeling of random chaos is accentuated by Kelly populating his film with a ragtag band of former teen stars, pop singers, TV icons and any number of Saturday Night Live performers. When Christophe Lambert shows up it feels like this is less a cast, more a thespian equivalent of Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses.
At the heart of it is Dwayne Johnson, better know as wrestler The Rock, who is absolutely ridiculous as a kind of Schwarzenegger figure; the action star who’s married into major political family. Maybe Johnson will go on to become the actor OJ Simpson could’ve been, but with his eerie frozen face and panic filled eyes he looks like Kryton from Red Dwarf. And I’m not even sure it’s a bad performance – it may be he’s playing the character exactly as written.
It’s a terrible mess and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone because most people will hate and resent it but I can’t deny that I happily lapped up every silly second of it. I laughed with it and at it, and after a while I stopped distinguishing. It’s never dull and somewhere in its compendium of conspiracies, prophecies, shoot outs and outlandish sci fi there is a cross pollination between the inspired ideas and the rubbish ideas and the result is a cheerfully nonsensical pleasure.
Directed by Richard Kelly.
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake. 145 mins
It’s part old testament, part Rocky Horror, part MTV Spring Break, part Fahrenheit 9/11, part bad David Lynch, part The Spy Who Loved Me, at least three parts a rehash Katherine Bigelow’s pre-millennial LA thriller Strange Days, and exactly no parts Donnie Darko.
After the slow burning success of his elegantly controlled debut movie about suburban time travel and alternative universes, writer/director Kelly (still barely in his thirties) has thrown all his toys into the pram with this sprawling, undisciplined sci fi/ satire about the world ending in Los Angeles. Other than being very weird, it’s as different from Donnie Darko as is possible to imagine.
As an example of the indulgent, megalomaniac, different second film follow up the classic debut feature, it’s the most extreme since Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, which flushed away all the reluctant good will he had earned with Easy Rider.
The tone oscillates wildly: comedy, music videos, biblical prophesy and shoot outs all come tumbling onto the screen in a haphazard fashion. The feeling of random chaos is accentuated by Kelly populating his film with a ragtag band of former teen stars, pop singers, TV icons and any number of Saturday Night Live performers. When Christophe Lambert shows up it feels like this is less a cast, more a thespian equivalent of Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses.
At the heart of it is Dwayne Johnson, better know as wrestler The Rock, who is absolutely ridiculous as a kind of Schwarzenegger figure; the action star who’s married into major political family. Maybe Johnson will go on to become the actor OJ Simpson could’ve been, but with his eerie frozen face and panic filled eyes he looks like Kryton from Red Dwarf. And I’m not even sure it’s a bad performance – it may be he’s playing the character exactly as written.
It’s a terrible mess and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone because most people will hate and resent it but I can’t deny that I happily lapped up every silly second of it. I laughed with it and at it, and after a while I stopped distinguishing. It’s never dull and somewhere in its compendium of conspiracies, prophecies, shoot outs and outlandish sci fi there is a cross pollination between the inspired ideas and the rubbish ideas and the result is a cheerfully nonsensical pleasure.
