Southland Tales -- 'A' for Effort

A new movie has just come to DVD -- one you may or may not have heard of. It's Southland Tales (IMDb link here). It's written and directed by Richard Kelly, better known as the writer/director of Donnie Darko. The movie stars The Rock, Sarah Michele Gellar, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, and about 20 other recognizable celebrities.

The movie looks good on paper, doesn't it?

Reception has not been so good. According to IMDb, "Scored the lowest reviews for the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, averaging 1.1 out of 5 in all the dailies." It has only a 34% on Rottentomatoes, and only made about $356,000 worldwide (off of a $17,000,000 budget). You'd have a tough time finding a critic who can argue for the movie's worthiness of its 144 minute runtime.

I'm not going to argue that the movie is by any means great, or that it's even up to par with Donnie Darko. What I'm saying is that the movie is worth watching, regardless of the fact it (probably) doesn't make sense in the end.

I have always been of the philosophy that special effects are no substitute for solid writing and good direction. I still stand by that, but let me just say that Southland Tales is a visual treat, even though some of Kelly's choices for shots leave a bit to be desired. CGI, A+

There are two fundamental problems with Southland Tales, both in the writing department. First, a majority of the characters talk in stock patterns, phrases uttered that no one who has had a real conversation would use. But, the writing is consistent, and perhaps people in this future will speak like this. It didn't bug me much, but a problem, it still is.

The second, and larger of the two problems, is that there are so many subplots that keeping them straight is a webbed nightmare, and even when they all meet at the end, it still doesn't make any damn sense. What we can make sense of still doesn't seem worthwhile. So much build-up and almost no payoff. I cannot imagine a greater flaw in a movie.

We have an actor, married into a senator family, who leads a global monitoring of the internet, as well as endorses a drug that really isn't explained very well, while the actor has amnesia and is living with a porn star who is trying to start her own business, while she and the actor have somehow written a script that predicts the future, and the actor is researching it with a cop, also with amnesia -- who has a twin brother -- and plans to stage a fake murder for an organization that plans to take down the global monitoring corporation, but... are you still reading?

Those are most of the main plot points. There are lots of threads that tie everything together, and a lot of it makes sense, but Richard Kelly tries to do too much in too little time. All of this would take a whole season of a television show to unfold correctly. Instead we get it in one movie sitting. (sidenote: that's why there are graphic novels and whatnot released as well. Go, marketing, but that's not the point.)

I liked the movie, despite its flaws. But in the end, if you're thinking about renting this, do yourself a favor and rent either Mulholland Dr., or Donnie Darko. The former is, well, one of the best movie ever about similar subject matter (again -- kind of), the latter similar in the element of time warps. But, if you've seen both of those movies, go ahead and give Southland Tales a shot. If you regret it, I won't pay for your rental.