I got soul but i'm not a soldier

Only one thing in this blog, but boy is it long.

FILM

Southland Tales - So on Friday night, I watched Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, the film he made after Donnie Darko, with a bigger budget and seemingly, a better cast. Now if I had to name the following actors: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Seann William Scott and not tell you anything about the film, you may be thinking that this film was some sort of teen comedy given their background but you couldn't be further from the truth.

The truth is, that Richard Kelly cast this entire film with the thought of casting against type (as shown on the sole bonus featurette), the problem is, that none of the central cast members are particularly good in anything they do in the first place. Now, you'll argue that Sarah Michelle Gellar made Buffy her own and well I'd hope so, playing a character for well over 100 episodes SHOULD get you in the mind of that character, The Rock meanwhile, is either not meant to act or he just hasn't been cast in the right role yet, unless you include that male teen soap opera classic, the WWF. The cast are all wrong and to me it feels like Kelly has been approached by several actors saying how much they loved Donnie Darko and that they would work with him on anything, this is that anything. The cast could be the main fault of the film but there are many other things that could be to blame also, namely a mish-mash of ideas, far too many character's and no real goal in the film.

The film plays out a little like a sci-fi Pulp Fiction and sounds as promising if you read a premise but what you end up with is lots of pieces about alternate fuels, identity theft, government monitoring and of course, sexual intercourse between two motor vehicles for what reason I've still to figure out. The film is sort of held together by Justin Timberlake's generic soldier character though he only seems to be there to spout more back story (there are graphic novels which proceed the film) as well as pointless facts about the world, which sort of takes up the first half hour. The setting of the story, 2008, is partly the problem, if this film was made 10 or so years ago perhaps then it may have had the political and economical relevance that Kelly believes it does, instead, the film feels exactly how you might feel if you ever watched a muted presidential speech, you might catch the gist of what they are trying to get across, but you are never going to get the full story.

The sole DVD special feature should almost be considered a companion piece to the film since it brings up many points that you could never understand only by watching the film. For example Kelly was apparently trying to make a statement of how stupid violence is by having OTT deaths in the film, something I never picked up on. A few other points arise when he states that the film is supposed to be a comedy/action movie. For those who have seen the film, just think about that for a moment and my reply will be: "Yes,me too". Another point that is brought up on the Surveilling Southland featurette, is that no-one actually knows what it's about exactly, NO-ONE. All the actors interviewed claim they did it since they had never read anything like it before, one actor goes on to talk about how he only accepted the job because it confused, bewildered and annoyed his agent. After the actor (I forget his name, he had a slightly smaller role) tells us this story, he tells us that he didn't know what it was about and after reading through it again and again he still didn't understand it. Take from that what you will. Southland Tales can boast one thing though, one of the worst lines in cinema history: "I'm a pimp and pimps don't commit suicide" which is heard twice in the film.

I guess I should put the defence case forward for Southland Tales. The effects, of the CG variety, are pretty well done, considering the reported $15-$17 million dollar budget, some drug-like effects are pretty well done, in one scene where one of Seann William Scott's character's wakens up and also at the beginning of the Justin Timberlake dance number. While on the subject of that musical number, most may be expecting Timberlake to use his Michael Jackson like dance moves to entertain when instead he goes against the grain and drunkenly ambles around an arcade, the best example of playing against type in the entire film. This being the second time I have seen the film, I remember the number vividly and it was probably my favourite part of the film this time around, if only for the song which I later found out is in fact a song by The Killers called All These Things That I've Done, a band I had next to no liking for beforehand. The rest of the soundtrack is pretty good too, Moby provides several great eerie pieces of ambient music and there are also decent alternate versions of songs such as
The Pixies, Wave Of Mutilation and a very interesting version of The Star Spangled Banner.

I can't really put any more arguments in the films defence without summing up. The film is not the atrocity that some people make out, if you watch it, you are probably going to be with the story JUST enough to get you through but after taking out the DVD you'll no doubt start wondering to yourself what it is actually about, then again, hands up if you've ever understood a David Lynch film. The film is almost saved by it's (many) members of supporting cast who display enough interesting ideas to keep you interested and distract from the quite awful leads. The ending meanwhile harks back to Donnie Darko, maybe Richard Kelly can't write a proper ending for a screenplay so each time he just works time travel into it somehow.

I can't say I hate the film and it's probably because I want to like it so much but can't find anything that would make you want to definitely seek it out. Instead of being the decent Sci-fi movie it could be, it ends up being like the outcast child no-one wants, all it needs is love, a wash, a new suit, a haircut and possibly a few years to mature. To paraphrase Andy last week, "If Richard Kelly has made his one good film, he made it before Southland Tales."

Southland Tales - 6/10

Oh and for anyone interested, you can view said JT dance number here.