2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY
A film review by Dominic Ow
Copyright 1997 Flying Inkpot
Written by: John Herzfeld Directed by: John Herzfeld Produced by: MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) [aka MGM-UA] / Redemption / Rysher Entertainment Cast: Danny Aiello, Greg Cruttwell, Jeff Daniels, Teri Hatcher, Glenne Headly, Peter Horton, Marsha Mason, Paul Mazursky, James Spader, Eric Stoltz, Louise Fletcher, Natasha Henstridge. Runtime: About 107 minutes Rating : ** out of *****
There are movies that pose a question in its first five minutes and spend the rest of the time trying to answer it. Then there are movies that spend the whole time posing questions and try to answer it all in the last five minutes. Writer-director John Herzfeld's Two days in the valley falls into the latter category.
Weaving together a grabbag of seemingly unrelated characters, Herzfeld's tries very hard to keep the audience guessing with a Altmanesque series of parallel stories. Hitmen Lee (James Spader) and his partner Dosmo (Danny Aiello) pop a guy in bed while leaving his drugged wife Becky Fox (Teri Hatcher) lying next to him showing the audience where on her behind she got nicely pricked. An understandeably shocked Becky runs out of the house the next morning before hailing down a couple of vice cops, (Jeff Daniels) and Wes (Eric Stoltz). A murder is not vice territory, flirting with asian prostitues is, but Wes would rather play inquisitive detective.
Meanwhile, washed-up director, Teddy (Paul Mazursky) is about to end his life. But before he can do that, he must find a good home for his dog. Enter nurse Audrey (Marsha Mason), who takes the dog and Teddy for a ride.
Stuffy art dealer, Allan Hopper (Greg Cruttwell) has kidney stones. While struggling about his fancy house, he switches between moaning in self-pity and dropping condescending hints about his loyal secretary's (Glenne Headly) plain appearance.
Don't be surprised if you find yourself asking more than once just what the hell is going on. You might like that feeling of cluelessness. Herzfeld does answer all the questions in the course of time and pieces it all rather neatly in the last five minutes.
The jigsaw puzzle assembled isn't stunning by any means though. The characters lack the stature or moral complexity of Altman's real-life heroes in Short Cuts, even though they are interesting and funny. Funny, that is if you aren't comparing them to the likes of Tarantino's Pulp chcaracters. The tie-up is tidy but nowhere near the squeaky clean resolution of (director's name? guy who also did last seduction) Red Rock West.
Two days isn't a bad movie but there isn't much else to it than the screenplay novelty of the linkage of seemingly unrelated characters. It'll keep you guessing alright but you won't remember the answers five minutes after the credits.
The Flying Inkpot Rating System: * Wait for the TV2 broadcast. ** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha! *** Pretty good, bring a friend. **** Amazing, potent stuff. ***** Perfection. See it twice.
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