This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 10:55 am and is filed under Dramedy, Movie Reviews, NEW ON VIDEO, S. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Nora Dunn, John Larroquette
Donnie Darko fans rejoice! For the master has returned with another strange (but not as strange), surreal feature that is as sure to collect cult fans as my copy of Donnie Darko is to collect dust. Just kidding. I don’t own a copy. Whatever, your opinion is of writer/director Richard Kelly, you have to agree that he has two things: his own sense of style, and legions of ready-to kill-for-him fans. This film is light-handed, but very surreal and packs a pretty obvious political message that guarantees you won’t find a copy at George Bush’s White House. There are more familiar faces here than at a high school reunion, so the acting is outstanding. There is so much going on in Southland Tales that maybe one viewing isn’t a fair evaluation of its quality. I’m going to evaluate it, anyway, as a waste of time for non-Darko fans. Darko fans, enjoy and feel free to dismiss the rest of us as unimaginative dullards who “just don’t get it”.
Southland tales starts out with a description of a very different America, locked up with rapidly deteriorating freedom by an overzealous, terrorism-fueled right, where the left is turning militant in its opposition. When action star, and right supporter, Boxer Santaros (The Rock, who continues to improve) goes mysteriously missing, it serves as a trigger for all kinds of action. He’s not missing for us though. We know he has partial amnesia and is living with a porn star named Krista Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) while he plans a new movie, but his new friends have some plans of their own.
Southland Tales is a highly political satire about the dangers of letting fear stop us from defending our precious freedoms. I like the message, but the film is not my cup of cappuccino. I found it overly complicated and the metaphors make me tired.
