The Salton Sea

[Anonymous]

Saw this the other night, Blockbuster rental. I remember reading about it at AICN with the impression that it would get a theatrical release. No such luck, apparently, and as far as I can tell, a shame. Val Kilmer in a nice, complex role and the always fascinating Vincent D'Onofrio. Anyone else seen it and have an opinion on this, or am I just trying to justify a trip to Blockbuster?

[Tom Chick]

It definitely had a theatrical release, but I'm sure it was limited. I know it played for a few weeks in LA. I was pretty disappointed. It seemed too split between the Trainspotting quirk, a whodunnit, and a revenge drama. The mix just didn't really work for me.

Great opening scene, though.

I haven't really cared for Val Kilmer lately. I liked the scenes with him and Peter Sarsgaard, which were actually the emotional core of the movie (certainly more compelling than any of the wife flashbacks).

As for D'Onofrio, I think a lot of his recent roles, particularly this one, are way too over the top to be anything but ridiculous. A noseless maniac with a penis eating badger? Egad!

-Tom

[mtkafka]

Not a bad movie. I liked the last shootout though with the counting bullets thing. I actually was saying the same thing in that scene, "does he have enough bullets?" The writer of that movie knew his guns i think.

etc

[GMicek]

Saw this the other night, Blockbuster rental. I remember reading about it at AICN with the impression that it would get a theatrical release. No such luck, apparently, and as far as I can tell, a shame. Val Kilmer in a nice, complex role and the always fascinating Vincent D'Onofrio. Anyone else seen it and have an opinion on this, or am I just trying to justify a trip to Blockbuster?

It played here for about a month, so it did have some theatrical release.

As for the movie itself, I liked it a lot. It had a lot of problems though. It was almost as if the director didn't know what sort of movie he wanted to make. Tom Chick made a good observation with the Trainspotting reference. I actually thought that it was going to be a disturbing drama sort of thing, and the stuff I read on it supported that. I was a little shocked when they started making jokes. Ahh well, still a great movie but it could have been better if they took it more seriously I think.