Spoilers For Southland Tales
It was funny, sad, frightening, silly and that was just the first 45 minutes. Southland Tales has managed to capture the insanity that is life in the United States and sometimes not in a good way.
There was so much happening at any given moment that it’s almost an overload of the senses. I didn’t want to blink for fear of missing something relevant.
First let me say that I like strange movies and this one is definitely strange. A porn star has her own clothing line, energy drink etc. Bush has screwed up the country so badly that the citizens no longer have their privacy (maybe not so strange). All movements are monitored by a bitchy woman who stays constantly glued to uncountable computer screens. The most popular drug is a hallucinogen that actually makes good music come out of Justin Timberlake’s mouth (a Killer’s song).
I can’t stand The Rock. Never liked him as a wrestler and even less as an actor, but I was able to get past that because I was so into the movie. Thank goodness Timberlake didn’t lip synch any of his own songs or I would have needed the mute button. The rest of the cast I liked.
Some of the acting is kind of campy and lacking believability, but I think that was the intent of the director to add to ridiculousness of some of the scenes in his apocalyptic vision. Critics say that it is muddled, confusing, senseless, etc., but that is probably because they didn’t understand it.
Overall I found Southland to be entertaining and thought provoking. I saw it more than a week ago and still think about some of the scenes. This is one film I’m going to add to my collection. It was that good. I give it an A.
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