Filled. This movie is filled with a huge strange cast and filled with visuals and filled with music and filled with ideas and filled with off-kilter dialogue and filled with a nearly two and a half hour running time and this sentence is now filled with too much info. See what can happen?
SOUTHLAND TALES is the follow-up film by the visionary director of DONNIE DARKO, Richard Kelly. Whereas that film has a cult following and is terrific, Kelly's new project just can't hold it together because it's just TOO MUCH. It took him years to make and get financed, so it's unfortunate that the final product is as convoluted as it is. Set in an alternate-reality, post-WWIII, there are ties to many other pictures before it (DR STRANGELOVE and the work of Philip K. Dick primarily, but also the classic film noir KISS ME DEADLY, which makes an appearance in the background...twice), but it is confused with it's own identity (satire? black comedy? sci-fi?). It may not interest the vast populace but Kelly seems insistent that it has a message that all should hear. Too bad that the select audience that does see the film will miss his message, lost and buried under the weight of so much extraneousness.
I'm curious if you, the reader, had been in the know about SOUTHLAND TALES already or if it's your first time hearing of it (understandable as it was years in development and was in very very limited release when it was finally unveiled last year). In order to provide this review its own clarity, I'll break down the film into a few pieces and a couple bites that may spark your curiosity further.
There are major points about the government, politics, the Patriot Act and surveillance. Got that part. A computer creation called US-IDent rules the internet and all computer users (as watched over by the wife of a politician, a malevolent-looking Miranda Richardson).
There is pointed satire relating to the indulgence of celebrity and their sway over the culture. Got some of that too, particularly in the "Arnold-like" actor Boxer Santaros (played greatly by the guy having the most fun, "The Rock" himself, Dwayne Johnson) and the porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar, acting way outside the lines of her previous roles).
Twin brothers played by Seann William Scott help hold the key to "the end of the world" but what they're actually doing throughout the movie seems unknown (simple explanation for one: he's a cop, so he's on-duty). At least it's not two Stiflers.
Miss seeing Cheri Oteri or Jon Lovitz from "Saturday Night Live"? Well, they're on display here in dark humorless characters definitely "not ready for primetime" but also not fit for their former sketch show. You can make a drinking game at home taking a drink whenever a sketch show veteran appears on-screen (Nora Dunn, Will Sasso, Amy Poehler).
Ever wondered what would happen if "Inconceivable!" Wallace Shawn and "They're heeeeeeeeerrrre..." Zelda Rubenstein appeared in the same film and the same scenes?? Wonder no longer. Oh and toss in "Booger" from REVENGE OF THE NERDS just to see what happens.
Pop-singing drinking game! Watch Mandy Moore (always cute), a singer in our reality, but in the movie's reality she doesn't sing [half-gulp]. Watch Sarah Michelle Gellar, who's not a real singer in reality, but sings a tune here called "Teenage Horniness is Not a Crime" [gulp]. Watch Justin Timberlake, who IS a real singer, but lipsyncs here (in what is probably the best scene, keep reading) [gulp]!
Timberlake may be the best character in the movie. WHAT? Don't hate, appreciate! His narration carries us throughout the film and when lipsynching to the Killers' "All These Things That I've Done", he is definitely a true highlight as well as being the movie's centerpiece (coming directly in the middle of the film). It speaks to a soldier's terror of the war he's involved in and the confusion around him ("I got soul but I'm not a soldier"), but it's really just a kick-ass surprise of a moment and the most different thing in a film filled with different things. The scenes that follow are letdowns in its wake.
If you're not enticed to see this yet, you probably never will be. There's alot of David Lynch-style here and that makes it intriguing and impenetrable at the same time. Another game: count the Lynch similarities (set in L.A. [gulp]; Wallace Shawn's character is VERY similar to another Baron, the one from DUNE [gulp],; Rebekah Del Rio sings a song in Spanish at the same point in the film as in MULHOLLAND DRIVE [gulp]). I'm drunk from this movie...
The cinematography is strong and the visuals are amazing, I just didn't know what was going on for diffenent parts of the story. The character threads do start to come together near the end (as diverse as they are with Neo-Marxism and time-space tears), but the blimp could have been labeled "deus ex machina". Still, I was a captive audience and I could not turn away. Not every film can say that and I know I'll watch it again! INLAND EMPIRE did that, but on the second viewing I knew I didn't like it much (Lynch again [gulp]).
SOUTHLAND TALES: so bad, it's good? Maybe ( ...but probably not). It goes for broke... then breaks. Worth seeing? For the discussion, yes, but further viewing is at your discretion I suppose. It's Kelly's version of the end of the world, thoroughly involving your attention, but trying to make you figure out a plot that is not built to be a puzzle. By the end you're left wondering what was just said, what just happened and why.
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