2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY
A film review by Serdar Yegulalp
Copyright 1997 Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: "Quirky" sums up this neat little movie about a gallery of disparate characters whose lives collide over the course of 48 hours in Los Angeles. The proper meaning of "Tarantino-esque".
If you tried to map out the coincidences that took place in your real life, you'd have material which would strain the plausibility of most mystery-readers. 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY contains one insane coincidence after another, but that's okay, for two reasons. One, it contains a wealth of intriguing and intelligently-written characters, and two, it's *about* coincidences as much as it *contains* coincidences. It's "Tarantino-esque" in the right sense of the word: it extends on the kinds of things Quentin Tarantino introduced into a movie without becoming redundant or insulting.
Without spoiling anything, let me try to list as many of the people as possible in this movie, as well as how they start off. We have an estranged husband and wife, who have two hitmen walk in on them. We have an art dealer and his secretary, who are later taken hostage at gunpoint by one of the hitmen -- who really, REALLY hates dogs. We have the other hitman's icy Nordic girlfriend, who has a way of being able to tell you you're screwed simply by smiling at you. We have two vice cops who stumble into a murder scene and get a lot more than they bargained for. We have a washed-up, suicidal television director and the nurse he meets in a cemetary when he tries to give her his... yes, his dog. And even *there* I think I've missed a few.
The movie works by subtly defeating our expectations about what movies normally do. In one scene, we switch from one conversation to another in mid-sentence -- without even the rhythm of the shots changing. Slowly the threads of the movie converge -- in a way that only makes sense at the end, and even then it's completely off the wall -- but by that time the movie has declared its territory: it's about characters, not plots.
This movie grows on you. I thought it would be too self-consciously arty for my taste. It comes on more like a good friend whom you suddenly discover has a thing for sleight-of-hand and card tricks, and surprises you in more ways than you might think.
Three out of four... dogs. (Heh, heh.)
syegul@ix.netcom.com EFNet IRC: GinRei http://www.io.com/~syegul another worldly device...
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