Salton Crackers
A parade of crazies keeps this Sea
afloat.
If you enjoy movies about a violently widowed
man who's unsure of his identity -- and is covered in tattoos that remind him
of his mission of vengeance -- but you can't be bothered with the frustration
of watching a movie that's edited backwards, put that Memento DVD aside
and go check out The Salton Sea. That both movies were developed
around the same time probably says something about the zeitgeist, but most
likely represents major tattoo envy on the part of directors who can't bring
themselves to choose a skin etching personal enough to last for all time.
Just
so you'll feel somewhat smart, The Salton Sea features a little bit of
nonlinear narrative -- just enough to bring Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie to
mind, though the dialogue (courtesy of scribe Tony Gayton, who has written two
different films titled Murder by Numbers in the past two years)
thankfully eschews silly pop-culture regurgitation.
We
open with Val Kilmer, playing a protagonist named either Tom or Danny, sitting
and playing a trumpet in a room full of burning money. Though he appears to be
doomed, Tom/Danny (let's call him Tom for simplicity's sake) is kind enough to
impart to us, via inner monologue and stock footage both real and simulated,
the complete history of crystal meth, beginning in mid-century
Once
the history lesson has returned us, more or less, to the present day just prior
to the flaming dinero, we learn that Tom's life had become consumed by meth
addiction -- "the land of the perpetual night party." How he manages
to make a living isn't clear, though, since he seems to rapidly inhale any
profit that could be derived from the drug deals he brokers. What is soon
revealed -- and this is the first of several revelations to come -- is that Tom
is actually in the service of two rather dubious undercover cops (Anthony
LaPaglia and Doug Hutchison) who, when not zapping Tom with a Taser simply
because they feel like it, are using him to nab bigger fish as part of his plea
bargain.
Among
the biggest of the fish to be nabbed is Pooh Bear (Vincent D'Onofrio, with
volume cranked to 11), a Palmdale redneck who lost his nose to meth addiction
and enjoys restaging the JFK assassination using pigeons and a remote-control
truck. That is, when he's not eating brains or feeding an informant's genitalia
to a wild badger. Almost as extreme is Bobby Ocean (Glenn Plummer), who
smothers his girlfriend between mattresses while spraying insecticide at
imaginary spiders and firing a speargun off at random. By contrast, a bizarre
Asian cowboy named Bubba (B.D. Wong) seems downright normal.
Tom's
attempting to set up a big deal between Bubba and Pooh Bear, but he has his own
agenda. His wife was murdered near the Salton Sea, and his current path is one
designed to bring him closer to revenge in ways it would be unfair to reveal
here. And if that sounds like enough plot to throw at an audience, consider
this: Gayton and first-time feature director D.J. Caruso also toss into the pot
a battered spouse (Deborah Kara Unger) who lives across the hall from Tom, as
well as a whole host of junkie-losers our "hero" hangs with, one of
whom plans an elaborate heist (which we see speculatively played out in
faux-Soderbergh style) to lift a Bob Hope stool sample and sell it on eBay.
There's also best friend Jimmy the Finn (Peter Sarsgaard), who sports a mullet
from hell and drives a car with large rust holes in the floor. He's none too
bright, this Jimmy, but he's loyal. When Tom asks him how you know if you're
doing the right thing, he responds, "People around you are happy. They say
"thank you' and stuff."
The
whole shebang is going to be a love-it-or-hate-it affair, depending on whether
the ongoing display of deranged caricatures amuses or proves to be too much (in
addition to the above, veteran character actors Danny Trejo, Luis Guzmán and R.
Lee Ermey are all in there somewhere). Those hoping for a serious look at the
problem of addiction, which is where the movie initially appears to be headed,
may find their sensibilities offended by the likes of the preteen gun dealer
played for comic relief, or D'Onofrio's constant wheezing.
As a gallery of the grotesque, however, the
cinematic equivalent of a Joe Coleman painting or Adam Parfrey publication, The
Salton Sea is a blast. It could have been even edgier than it is -- the
occasional nonlinear scenes indicate an ambition that's all too tentative at
this point. For a debut feature, though, and a big "mainstream" one
at that, it marks Caruso as a director to watch.