The unmitigated hubris of Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly has resulted in Southland Tales (see the trailer here), sprawling, 2.5 hour epic apocalyptic saga that he describes as a "comedy about the end of the world."
Now I'm in favor of the general idea behind this film - cast a bunch of fun comedy actors mostly against type (Cheri Oteri as an obnoxious loudmouth isn't exactly countercasting, but there are some good quiet moments she has, along with making fun of her reputation) and put them in the kind of movie they usually don't get considered for, a dramatic political satire involving vast conspiracies and Armageddon. The Rock is playing a twitchy actor with amnesia and brainwashing, John Larroquette is playing a Texan political advisor, and Jon Lovitz is playing a ruthless, evil cop. I love this kind of thing, and I love these actors and I enjoyed seeing them in new roles. Especially with Dwayne Johnson, an actor I always fear will screw up, only to be surprised when he pulls it off. As an enjoyer of his pro wrasslin' career, I root for him to succeed and fear his failure.
I like this idea so much, and I like these actors so much that it's highly saddening to see them all in a train wreck of a film, as it likely won't bring them more work no matter how well they handled their end of the deal. I think it's telling that, even in the production notes of the film, they quote The Rock as saying "I've been close to this project now and close to Richard for over a year, and I've stopped trying to completely understand everything thats happening in the movie." I'll try to delineate it as best I can anyway, and if you're inclined to shy away from spoilers, skip the next three paragraphs, because talking about the ending is likely the only way I'll be able to make sense of the beginning and middle.
The Bush administration's policies of stripping away civil liberties in the name of security have resulted in highly invasive monitoring of the American public, including military outposts on every corner that can gun people down at will (one of them manned by Justin Timberlake, a drug-addled war veteran who also serves as our narrator, who may be dreaming the whole thing), and a massive technological spy network called USIDent, all in time for the 2008 election (although this might've been more believable if the movie was finished 14 months ago, when it had its work-in-progress screening panned at Cannes). The front-running Republican candidate is Senator Bobby Frost (Holmes Osborne), who's handled by Vaughn Smallhouse (Larroquette). He's essentially a Bush clone, and his wife Nana Mae (Miranda Richardson) takes pleasure in running USIdent and monitoring everything. They're in league with a mysterious German company headed up by Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn), who claims to have invented a way to harness the power of the ocean to provide wireless, infinite energy to the world - which is necessary because the depletion of fossil fuels contributed heavily to this martial-law status in America. Not to mention the fact that we are repeatedly treated to the massive glut of exposition in the form of the 24-hour news networks all at once, with Fox News-style ticker scrolls along the lines of "Just Give Up Already: America's Military Schools Iraqis on Destruction."
This governmental omnipresence has also inspired a Neo-Marxist revolutionary movement among the militant left wing, which features operatives like Oteri's gun-happy Zoe Charmichaels, Nora Dunn's "Deep Throat 2" Cyndi Pinziki, Amy Poehler's egotistical actress Dream and Sarah Michelle Gellar's ambitious porn star Krysta Now. They are plotting a conspiracy to blackmail Senator Frost for a million dollars by brainwashing his daughter Madeline's (Mandy Moore) husband, amnesiac action-movie star Boxer Santaros (Johnson), into being caught on tape frolicking with Krysta, and also getting him to film a staged racist cop shooting. The faux-racist cop in question is Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott), who has an identical twin brother running around, and they both have mysteriously glowing hands. This is because they are actually time-displaced duplicates of each other, thanks to a hole in the space-time continuum somewhere on the way to Vegas, and this is also why Boxer lost his memory, by the way.
There's also Bai Ling slithering around making out with people, Will Sasso as some kind of low-life criminal, Highlander Christopher Lambert driving around in an ice cream truck arsenal, Kevin Smith with a giant fake old-man beard and Lou Taylor Pucci as a random gangster kid who gets drafted into the army and will just NOT stop calling everyone "dog" every other sentence. Timberlake's drug trip involves him lip-synching to The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done." Then there's a big dance number at the end before a space-age blimp explodes. Oh, and apparently the central theme is that pimps don't commit suicide.
As you can see, this film lacks focus.
This film is 19 minutes shorter than the version that screened at Cannes in 2006, and the fact that I saw Janeane Garofalo in the film for a one-second shot means there was an entire role cut out of the film - meaning it was even MORE confusing at one time. It's long and tedious for sizable stretches, and it is often frustrating. It takes a while to get used to the fact that most of these funny people are not going to be funny in this film, but Kelly fails in his responsibility to keep things interesting because his ideas all seem to be getting in the way of each other.
The fascination comes in with the actors, once you're resolved to the fact that the story is in shambles and the pace will never be picked up. These are all great, talented performers who prove they can do more than what they're generally given. Johnson's manic, confused Boxer is consistently compelling when he's on screen, and Gellar's career-minded Krysta gets most of the funny lines that work their way into this "comedy," although it helps that most of them are filthy as well. Lovitz with bleached blond hair and absolutely no hint of a smile works great as a creepy, murderous cop that freaks Boxer and Roland out. It's great to see a lot of these people, and they really help distract you from the fact that you're watching a turgid mess of a film.
Overall, it's a bit of a task to sit through, and those without my affection for the ensemble cast will be much less inclined to be kind to the movie. If nothing else, the "pop art" value of the film that Kelly champions may be the only value anyone ascribes to seeing Southland Tales. It will just be morbid curiosity for anyone else.
