Tagline: A state of fear and terror.
Curiosity: My special lady friend is a fan. Plus, it stars Brad Pitt in a rare villainous role. Plus plus, it’s got David Duchovny before I found out he was a super-gross sex addict, and it was filmed during his X-Files heyday!
Plot: Brian (Duchovny) is writing a book about serial killers, but it isn’t going well and he’s already spent his advance. His girlfriend Carrie (Michelle Forbes) is a confrontational, experimental photographer who’s too edgy for the establishment. By which I means she photographs boobies in black and white, which is classy. She’s all like, “No one understand my art; let’s get out of this scene.” So they do. Brian concocts a massive road trip in which he would visit famous murder sites to write about, and Carrie can photograph them. Gas is kind of an issue, though, so he puts up a flier looking for some passengers to chip in. In steps mega-hick Early (Brad Pitt) and his damaged girlfriend Adele (Juliette Lewis). While the whole thing starts off as the weirdest prolonged double date ever, the quartet soon finds overlapping interests, even friendship.
Except Early is an amoral killer, which may or may not put a damper on the whole trip.
Thoughts: Kalifornia is a good movie that could’ve been a great one. The film uses narration heavily, but to no real effect. As the protagonist, Duchovny swoops in to either comment on what just happened or spoil something that’s about to happen. Either way, he repeats key plot point for the slow kids. And at two hours, Lewis’ character actor shtick starts to wear thin after a while, even though her performance overall is pretty compelling. It takes a fine intricacy of personal issues to justify her character’s involvement with Early, and Lewis more or less nails it even though the film’s length forces her towards overexposure. And let’s be honest, there are a few too many convenient twists keeping Brian and Carrie alive and well.
But the performances keep the picture afloat. Pitt has never been particularly celebrated as a guy with range, but he is genuinely frightening as Early. Some might be turned off by his white trash-sploitation, but he manages to convey nuances that make the character alternately warm and horrific. See, Early isn’t evil; at least, he doesn’t have an agenda. He lacks moral comprehension, and to that end his character can be downright likeable. He kills because he thinks it’s necessary. Good and bad have nothing to do with it. Pitt captures this little switch from friend to murderer quite well. Not bad for the guy who did Meet Joe Black.
Reflection: Then again, 90 percent of Lewis’ dialogue is punctuated by loud guttural bursts. What’s up with that?
No comments:
Post a Comment