Southland Tales (2007)

Written and Directed by Richard Kelly

(If you have plans to see this movie, I recommend you just go see it blind as possible, although I have done my best to keep any spoilers out of this review)

Well, I've been trying to figure out how to tackle this review for like 3 days now. I'm still not sure what to say about this film, but here it goes. This is the most complex movie I've probably ever seen, which is both a blessing and a curse for this story. Like Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly has a lot of things to say, and he crams it all into a single film here. I can see the dividing line on this film, some people will think it's all psuedo-intellectual bullshit, while others will watch it over and over looking for every nugget of meaning, which, if you look for it, there is a lot. Whether you see any value in that meaning is a matter of personal preference, like Donnie Darko before it, this will divide audiences exceptionally, with some saying it's random nonsense where meaning can be found only by those looking for it. To some degree, that's true, it all depends on your mindset on what you're looking for from this movie. I think this will divide even fans of Donnie Darko, because the story is not easily found, it takes work, and I'm convinced multiple viewings are required to fully pull anything significant from this movie. For some people, that's asking too much, it's easier to say it makes no sense, screw this movie, and forget about it. That's one route, but personally the more I think about this movie, the more I want to see it again, to see if I notice the same things twice. This is a movie for the video generation, the people that will be watching it more than once and studying multiple facets of it.

To delve into the storyline would only bring spoilers, but here's a very brief explanation, that does no real justice to what the movie is actually about.

Boxer Santaros (The Rock) is an action movie star, who has mysteriously disappeared from his normal life, where he is the husband of Presidential candidate Bobby Frost's (Holmes Osborne) daughter. This is an alternate 2008, where in 2005 the cities of Abeline and El Paso, Texas were bombed with nuclear weapons, sending the US into World War 3 against Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea. The one state that is undecided as to the presidential vote is California, which is the epicenter of the anti-government Neo-Marxist movement. A new technology called Liquid Karma has been developed, which creates perpetual motion using the power of the ocean and its waves. The developer of this technology, The Wizard Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn) is an oddly eccentric character who is at the center of a seemingly endless conspiracy involving Boxer Santaros, who was found in the Eastern Southern California desert, which his memory erased. He ends up back in the Southland (Greater Los Angeles), working on a movie he wrote called The Power, whose co-writer is porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who is developing a series of products that if successful, would make her Olsen Twins-like famous. The bulk of the film has to do with the political struggles of the Neo-Marxist movement, who are fighting a dystopian government obsessed with surveillance.

When World War 3 broke out, many prominent people got pulled into the military through reinstatement of the draft, including movie star Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) who is somehow involved in one of these government controlled conspiracies, involving the power created by Liquid Karma. He is also somehow connected to the story of police officer Roland Taverner (Sean William Scott) and his twin brother (also Scott) who have become embroiled with the Neo-Marxist movement, who in fact might not be who they think they are.

I can't say anything more than that without telling straight spoilers. That fact is not important however, because this movie is 2 hours and 24 minutes of straight plot, within which is hidden the things that I'm now convinced Richard Kelly is obsessed with, including the concept of time travel, parallel universes, the idea of a Christ-like figure being the key to saving humanity, along with some new things he is seemingly just as obsessed with, including the power that government weilds, and the nature of corruption in the human experience.

Now, where this movie will divide people is how all of these concepts are interpreted by each individual viewer, based on their personal politics and interest in each of the aforementioned subjects. I personally am interested in each of these things, so even while I saw some of Kelly's ideas as half-baked and shallow, I was still entertained by the fact that he had the brains to fit this complicated puzzle into one movie, even if not perfectly. I was also impressed with the fact that he was willing to try things that so many other filmmakers would completely avoid for their lack of "safe" qualities. I'm a genre fan at heart, and another aspect of this movie I really enjoyed was the fact that he was willing to weave so many different genres and inspirations into one film, it's the filmic equivalent of making a chocolate, macaroni and cheese, steak, potato chip, egg, pizza, and hamburger cake. All things that are good, but you wouldn't necessarily put together.

For me, just the attempt at this complexity was impressive, not to mention I was able to personally connect to many of the themes and feelings of the movie. At the same time, it's a rabbit-hole style mystery film where every piece of the puzzle is essential in the end, and not listening to a single word of dialogue or seeing every frame in its entirety is a disservice to the viewer, which may be too daunting a fact for mainstream audiences. As I mentioned, this is the farthest thing from a mainstream movie, and that may be a fact that bothers some people, who might feel all it did was try to be weird and disjointed. For me though, it didn't feel unnatural, rather just unfinished. This is the skeleton to a brilliant movie, the basic structure is there for greatness to exist, but without a nerve system, muscle, organs, and skin, it tends to come apart and not work properly.

I also understand this has been a constant work in progress for close to 5 years, and it premiered basically unfinished at Cannes to a harsh audience that hated it. So Kelly was able to convince Sony to fund $1 million extra for visual effects, which still seem to be somewhat unfinished, sacrificing 16 minutes of runtime to secure that additional fuding. I suppose on DVD we'll see those extra minutes, and be able to tell if they would have made any difference, but for now, this is sure to be known as one of the greatest failures ever attempted, let alone somewhat finished. I commend Richard Kelly, but at the same time I'm curious as to how this would have worked had it been about 6 different movies. I know this story is 6 parts, the first 3 of which appeared in graphic novel form, this was supposed to be one of the first truly multimedia medium-defying stories that could not be contained into a film, a book, a soundtrack or any single format. I plan on getting the graphic novels, to see if that really changes the experience at all, but for now, still digesting the movie, and a thirst to see it again, I'm am somewhat satisfied, and if anything, convinced it can only grow on me more and more as time passes and I've gone through several more viewings. Again, at worst, it will be known as one of the greatest failures of a really complex story, and at best, will be known as the biggest genre defying sci-fi spectacle commited to celluloid.

8.2/10 (for sheer audacity, risk taking, and genre mashing, if not just the story, acting, and filmmaking. I must say the filmmaking itself, techically speaking, is top notch, and I'm sure Richard Kelly has tons of talent, he just needs to find the proper way in which to point it in one direction)