The Salton Sea (2002)

Very disappointing...

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Excellent adaptation.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The test of the time is probably the best test that a movie can pass or fail. I have seen The Salton Sea two weeks ago, and did not have time to write immediately about it. Two weeks later I have a hard time remembering what the film was about. Fragments of good film making are left in my memory but they seem to be buried in a story which tries to make sense of some very improbable coincidences which end by making no sense, without the courage of being nonsense to the end, as in a Tarantino film. The Salton Sea tells the violent story of the life of a trumpet player turned into nightmare as his wife is murdered by drug dealers and trying to take revenge by enrolling as an undercover agent. His fake identity places him in the situation to meet the evil and their victims, and in order to take the revenge to the ultimate satisfaction he is obliged to go rogue and take all upon himself. No prisoners are taken and there hardly can be survivors from this situation.The world described in the film is the one of Tarantino's characters but director D.J. Caruso is no Tarantino and the story lacks exactly the sarcastic craziness of Quentin. Val Klimer does a fair job, but fair is not enough. I remember too little of this film two weeks after I have seen it, and I will probably remember nothing two weeks from now.

The Salton Sea commences in classic neo noir fashion, camera looking down at a man slumped upon the floor of a burning room, his mournful notes dancing in the air amidst charring money, wearied voice over inviting the audience to make their own mind up as to the events that led to this pretty pass. By and by the film enters less into the expected machinations of love, money and deceit, but a story of a sad man and his life among the terminally addicted, a milieu rather well evoked. Where all too many films about drugs mist along in glum pointlessness, bask in dumb revelry or wallow in bathos The Salton Sea gets things rather right, stylised for sure but in the aid of a well handled mood, endless days of sunless light, warmth of hazy friendship, excitable chatter and mad ideas. Its pleasing stuff, quirky and sympathetic drama tinged with offbeat humour and ever laced through with disturbing undercurrents of danger, with an eclectic cast handling their roles well. Much of the film is really pretty swell actually, which makes the final block all the more of a let down when the plot comes together. Though well executed things come together in regrettably typical fashion, eschewing the potential for thoughtful and interesting fusion of noir elements and drugged out characters, its fun in its quirky and violent fashion but a bit of a let down really. Still, assured direction from DJ Caruso (who appears not to have made anything worthwhile since) and plenty of good turns keep the film afloat. Val Kilmer is powerfully haunted as the hero with dark secrets and darker past, his star power subsumed into a pretty interesting character. Vincent D'Onofrio is an unhinged blast as a dealer with a fake nose, Deborah Kara Unger well worn and wearied as a beleaguered neighbour, Peter Saarsgard brings light as a friendly addict, Anthony LaPaglia and Doug Hutchison are hard nosed cops and there's even a nice restrained R. Lee Ermey cameo. A fine mixture, and they gel well together making for a smooth, interesting ride. With a better ending this could almost be a minor modern favorite of mine, but as it stands is merely pretty darned decent. Strong 7/10 from me, worth a look.

I am not a pro reviewer nor did I ever hear of this film until 3 days ago when it was on Showtime. I was enthralled in this film. Constant surprises, and the story that evolved around it. The actors and actresses all were so enthralled in their parts. The vivid scenery and usage of all else involved truly made me enjoy this film. I would like to just say that I am not a great writer as shown here. nut i wanted to tell anyone that is thinking about watching this movie to watch it. finally when I noticed the film had a budget of 18 mil and grossed 754k I was stunned. Who didn't understand how to promote an excellent movie? I never heard of it until the other day. It's funny how someone can make an excellent movie as shown by the reviews here and completely mess up the marketing. Watch this movie. It will not disappoint.

The writer of The Salton Sea, Tony Gayton, said that he didn't intend for his script to be made into the film, but wrote it out as an experiment, a piece that he could show off to Hollywood execs so that he could get other writing jobs (this is actually a much more common occurrence in getting writing jobs than you'd think). When the studio decided to make the script into a film, I wonder now seeing the film if its director DJ Caruso intended the same as his writer when he was making it. This is a film for a select bunch of viewers, and perhaps not even them at all.Who is the audience for The Salton Sea? Most likely that cultish group of movie-goers that loves trippy drug movies with black humor (its visual style screams out at times LOOK AT ME, with a musical track that accompanies it). But it's also got a story like a film-noir, or even that of a crime story off of nighttime network TV, where a guy goes undercover... and is going undercover even deeper again for another organization, all in the memory of his late wife. It's this clash that makes Salton Sea captivating, and also, at times, not very likable as a movie. It looks like it's cribbed from other movies, better ones (Trainspotting as one example, The Kind of New York as another), and morphed into its own thing.For the gaps in logic that the film has, and it definitely has a few (for one thing, when it's revealed how Kilmer's wife really died, it's kind of stupid why they were even where they were in the first place - and also, later on in the film, what the twisted relationship is between Kilmer and the cops he rats to on his life in the meth game), the film entertains and engages with its bizarre humor and even some of its predictable noirish elements (for example Deborah Kara Unger's subplot with the abusive husband). Caruso wants this to be a dark film with some surreal touches- something he makes us aware of in the first scene as trumpet player Daniel Parker (or is it Tommy Van Allen) plays on in the midst of a fire around him- and as long as he doesn't let things slip too far into the expected, it fares well.Supporting actors help out a great deal in ensembles, and it's here that an actor like Vincent D'Onofrio can go to town. He plays the no-nosed drug dealer Pooh-bear (named after poor Winnie sticking his nose into too much honey), and is so bonkers as he tries to outdo anything in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Arguably, he goes too far with it, especially with his character's penchant for having an actual badger eating a man's genitals. But it works as a crazy buffer in the midst of other plot lines that take themselves almost too seriously (the undercover plot) or not really at all (the Meth buddies plot to steal Bob Hope's stool, which is meant to played for laughs but felt kind of stale ala Tarantino). Others who stand out include Stellan Sarsgaard as Kilmer's Meth-buddie, and BD Wong who for most of the film plays a character so unlike we've seen him play on Oz or Law & Order.And as for Kilmer... he does alright. Nothing really great or audacious (he doesn't shoot for the moon like Jim Morrison) and nothing to be ashamed of. His narration either is very good or poor, usually based on the script. His mournful look resonates at first, but he does better at playing stoned in front of the cops or trying to stay on edge like in front of the bugged-out dealer with the woman trapped under his bed. And as more quirky and comic-book characters and twists come out of the woodwork, he holds his own and makes the film watchable, if not too demanding of the viewer.