CLAY PIGEONS (Gramercy) Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn, Janeane Garofolo, Georgina Cates, Scott Wilson. Screenplay: Matt Healy. Producers: Ridley Scott and Chris Zarpas. Director: David Dobkin. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, sexual situations, nudity, violence, adult themes) Running Time: 104 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
For what it's worth, Matt Healy's script for CLAY PIGEONS is remarkably unpredictable as film scripts go. It opens in a Montana field, where buddies Clay (Joaquin Phoenix) and Earl (Gregory Sporleder) are drunkenly firing away at empty bottles of Bud. The friendliness ends, however, when Earl reveals to Clay that he's aware of Clay's afair with Earl's wife Amanda (Georgina Cates). The humiliated Earl kills himself, having set up Clay to take the fall. It looks for all the world like CLAY PIGEONS is about to become a TROUBLE WITH HARRY-style black comedy, with Clay desperately trying to hide dead bodies while scorned woman Amanda makes his life more complicated by the moment.
Suddenly, the film takes a hard right turn with the arrival in town of Lester Long (Vince Vaughn), a jovially vulgar truck driver who bonds with Clay over brews and a game of pool. The two go fishing together, only to discover a floating corpse. Lester seems particularly keen to avoid any connection with the body, which makes more sense when another dead body turns up in town. What begins to look like a twisted battle of wills between Clay and Lester then takes another sharp turn with the arrival of FBI agents to investigate the dead body, led by Special Agent Dale Shelby (Janeane Garofolo). Big-city Shelby doesn't by Clay's folksy protestations of innocence, leading to culture clash. Is it a serial killer thriller, a dark comedy, or a Tarantino-era spin on small-town stagnation -- THE LAST PICTURE SHOW with stab wounds and copious use of a certain "f-word?"
I didn't mind not knowing from one moment to the next where CLAY PIGEONS might take me. I did mind that by the time I got where it was taking me, I didn't much care. Joaquin Phoenix brings his wounded, sensitive demeanor to Clay, making him a sympathetic enough protagonist in spite of his flaws. Director David Dobkin, on the other hand, doesn't seem nearly as interested in investing us in Clay's plight, or the hints that Clay's learning something about himself through it all. He's going for Atmosphere with a capital "A," lingering on drifting clouds and slow-motion inserts. Just when he should be trying for some hook into the story -- whether emotional or comedic -- Dobkin lets the narrative get progressively grimmer, chillier and more remote. It's a tic-and-flourish film in search of a solid center.
It's a shame he couldn't have done more with an intriguing, eccentric cast. Vince Vaughn, perhaps using Lester as a dry run for his turn as Norman Bates in the upcoming PSYCHO re-make, gives his amiable drifter an unsettling edge to go with his hollow laugh. Janeane Garofolo tries to give her ironic observations on small-town ways some bite, but her character always seems to belong in a slightly different movie. Elements like the town's dim-witted deputy never mesh with the sinister undertones of Vaughn's mysterious drifter. A film that could have been a quirky original instead feels merely off-putting, as though the director is daring the audience to find something to enjoy. Unpredictability can only carry a film so far; CLAY PIGEONS makes you feel like a sucker for coming along for the ride.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 pigeon droppings: 4.
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