'Darko' director falls flat with sophomore effort
To watch "Southland Tales" is to see the work of a filmmaker who bought into his own hype.
Writer-director Richard Kelly was hailed as a cinematic visionary by film geeks everywhere after the release of his 2001 cult hit, "Donnie Darko." (The 2004 director's cut of "Darko" just added to the film's popularity.)
That film, a flawed but compelling mix of John Hughes and David Lynch, inspired obsessive Internet discussions and a healthy midnight-movie following. Devotees dubbed Kelly the first great post-millennium American director.
Apparently convinced he's the genius so many have proclaimed him to be, Kelly throws all restraint and humility out the window in "Southland Tales," his sophomore effort. The film is an incoherent mash-up of Philip K. Dick, classic film noir, the Book of Revelation, T.S. Eliot, and about a dozen other touchstones of high and low art.
The plot includes murder, political cover-ups and travel to an alternate dimension. The tone is alternately light and heavy, ironic and deadly serious, broadly comic and bitterly satirical.
In short, the film's a mess.
Summarizing the story would be impossible. Suffice it to say that "Southland" is set in 2008 in an alternate America still recovering from a devastating nuclear attack a few years earlier. The action takes place in Los Angeles during the three days leading up to the Fourth of July.
Leading the huge cast is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who plays an action-movie star who returns from a mysterious disappearance with a case of amnesia. Other key characters include Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a porn star with a politically minded reality show; Sen. Bobby Frost (Holmes Osborne), a right-wing presidential candidate; and brothers Roland and Ronald Taverner, both played by Seann William Scott.
The central conflict in the story pits the conservative establishment against a violent group of "neo-Marxists" who're fighting government efforts to control people's lives in the name of the war on terror. Sitting in the middle of this is a brilliant German scientist who has learned how to create energy from the ocean and might have developed a way to enter an alternate dimension.
So just what is Kelly up to here? He clearly has a political agenda, as he sprinkles the movie with satiric jabs at the Bush administration, including fake political ads touting the need to suppress personal freedom in order to stop terrorists. I think the movie is also trying to say something about identity and the nature of heroism, but what that something is, I have no idea.
There are some nice moments. The movie opens with a stunning shot of the nuclear attack, shown via a camcorder being passed around at a July Fourth barbecue. And "Saturday Night Live" vets Amy Poehler and Cheri Oteri provide some big laughs.
But at the end, the movie just doesn't add up to much. The targets of Kelly's satire are easy and obvious. His narrative technique feels borrowed from past films such as "Natural Born Killers" and "The Big Lebowski." The ending is mystifying.
So was "Donnie Darko" a fluke? I don't think so. Kelly is clearly talented, and I'm sure he'll bounce back. I hope he'll realize when making his next film that just because he can throw a character or plot or metaphor on screen, doesn't mean he should.
"Southland Tales"
1 star out of four
Opens today
Dwayne Johnson as Boxer Santaros
Seann William Scott as Roland/Ronald Taverner
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Krysta Now
With Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, Nora Dunn and Mandy Moore.
Written by Richard Kelly. Produced by Sean McKittrick, Bo Hyde, Kendall Morgan and Matthew Rhodes. Directed by Richard Kelly. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release. Rated R (language, violence, sexual situations). Running time: 144 minutes.