Southland Tales (2/4)

I watched Southland Tales last night, the latest film from Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame.  The film received an incredibly poor reception at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and I can understand why.  The plot is confusing at best, and many times downright incomprehensible.  The film looks good, has some funny moments, and even a couple of good performances.  The movie is kind of a sci-fi, comedy, action, mystery, thriller, spoof, sorta thing.  In other words it does not really seem to know what it is, or maybe it does and the audience is just not smart enough to figure it out.  I am convinced that there is something going on in this movie, something that could have been great, but it is just too confusing to pick much out of the film.

I watched this movie on DVD where the version is apparently 20 minutes shorter than the one that was shown at Cannes.  The re-cut version is supposed to be more clear by cutting out some characters and plot lines, but it is still extremely confusing.  Perhaps there will be another version of this film one day, one where Richard Kelly can make the film as long as he would like, perhaps long enough to explain a little more what is actually going on in the film.  It seems unlikely that a film that has already had two version that no one liked would be released in yet a third version, but that is exactly what happened with Oliver Stone’s Alexander (which went from long, to to shorter, to much longer versions).

One thing worth noting is that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was again passable in this movie.  The Rock continues to put in workable, passable performances in a variety of roles.  Normally passable is not very high praise, but for an action star it is often the best that you can hope for.  I have great hope for The Rock, he is not a terrible actor, presumably can get better, has a great look for an action star and some decent off-screen charisma.