CLAY PIGEONS
USA. 1998. Director - David Dobkin, Screenplay - Matt Healy, Producers - Ridley Scott & Chris Zarpas, Photography - Eric Edwards, Music - John Lurie, Music Supervisors - Michelle Kuznetsky & May Ramos, Special Effects - Ultimate Effects (Supervisor - David Wayne), Makeup Effects - Kate Morgan Biscoe, Dead Body Effects - Image Animation, Production Design - Clark Hunter. Production Company - Scott Free/Polygram Filmed Entertainment/Intermedia Films. Joaquin Phoenix (Clay), Vince Vaughn (Lester Long), Janeane Garofalo (Agent Dale Shelby), Georgina Cates (Amanda), Scott Wilson (Sheriff Dan Moody), Phil Morris (Agent Renard), Vince Vieluf (Deputy Barney), Gregory Sporleder (Earl), Nikki Allyn (Gloria Collins)
Plot: In a small Montana town Clay's best friend Earl shoots himself after he discovers that Clay has been having an affair with his wife Amanda and deliberately does so to make it appear that Clay shot him. Clay is forced to cover up the suicide by faking an accident. However the calculating Amanda still wants Clay and continues to harass him to have sex with her. She then shoots a girl Clay goes out with, forcing him to dispose of that body in the lake. But then while Clay and his new friend Lester Long are fishing on the lake, the body turns up - only when Clay reports it to the police, it turns out to be a different body. Clay realizes that Lester is really a serial killer who has been slaughtering women in the area. But as the FBI arrive to investigate, the evidence begins to point to Clay as the killer.
The surprise about this essentially indie production is that it is produced by such usually commercially-minded directors as brothers Ridley and Tony Scott. The film starts in rather well with a plot filled with some deliciously black twists and turns - Sporleder shooting himself in order to leave the blame on Phoenix; Cates's blackmailing bitcheries and her shock shooting of Allyn during sex; and then a marvellously about-face twist as Phoenix and Vaughn drag the body out of the lake - only for Phoenix to find it is the wrong body. But after such a promising buildup the film somehow thereafter loses it all. The latter half of the film falls into something dreadfully predictable - the familiar device of the wrong man finding himself framed for the crimes and the psycho continuing to toy with him. Despite its desire to achieve an indie attitude there is something dreadfully predictable about the way the film plays itself out. Indeed the only real surprise it holds in store in its latter half is its failure to throw any twists on plot denouements one can see coming off way in advance.
What does however hold it together in the second half is its cast. Joaquin Phoenix gives an okay central performance, although he is essentially typecast in the same role he played in 'To Die For' (1995) - that of the not-terribly intellectually endowed smalltown yokel who is enwrapped in a murder plot and manipulated by a scheming bitch. Vince Vaughn though is the one having all the fun. Vaughn can present considerable charms on screen - most notably in 'Swingers' (1996) - and the twist here is that Vaughn remains the most charismatic character on screen while also playing a complete psychopath. And, although the beaming smile and the cowboy pose gets somewhat overplayed, it is fun to watch the charm being ployed and working on people. The film also has Janeane Garofalo who is, in this author's estimation, one of the most intelligent and underrated actresses around at the moment. This gives her a part that lifts her free of the typecasting she has acquired of late in light romantic comedies ever since her breakthrough in 'The Truth About Cats and Dogs' (1996). Her FBI agent holds attention with her cool deliberated composure and detached patience. (There is considerable play in the film between her FBI training and the town's more laidback ways). There is a fabulous encounter between she and Vaughn in a bar where she cynically deflates his persistent attempts to charm her but then when he turns away to the girl he was waiting to meet, we momentarily see her annoyance and get a glimpse of just how much she was starting to fall for his line. It's a marvellous piece of momentary character insight on director Dobkin's part.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1998
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