Bad Movies I Love, Part Five: Southland Tales (2007)

Is Southland Tales a bad movie?

Its interesting that a movie so critically reviled on release is still so passionately discussed on internet forums. Some flat out hate it whilst others love it and will defend it with the kind of passion usually reserved for the likes of Christians defending a religious figure.

Me, I think the movie is a mess, but its a glorious mess with some perfect moments which make me sad that the movie never rises fully above its flaws. Writer/Director Richard Kelly scored a cult hit with his debut feature Donnie Darko. The movie was extremely popular in the Uk and became a word-of-mouth hit. The Gary Jules cover version of Tears for Fears ‘Mad World’ featured in the film was even the Christmas number one single in 2003. The film was then seen widely on DVD and this lead to the release of a sadly inferior directors cut in 2004.

In 2005 Kelly announced that his follow up would be a sci-fi,musical comedy set during a heatwave in summer 2005. A mysterious website was placed online giving no information on the movies actual plot, just some interesting images. Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott and Sarah Michelle Gellar were cast as the leads and a prequel graphic novel was also written by Kelly himself and illustrated by Brett Wedele. Then in May 2006 the film debuted at the Cannes film festival to almost universal derision and complaints that film was unwatchable. Universal shelved plans to release the movie that September and Kelly defended the film by protesting that the cut screened was not finished. Things did not look good and it seemed we may never see the film.

In early 2007, Richard Kelly announced via his MySpace page that they had got the funding to complete the effects work for the film and it would be released later that year. An eclectic soundtrack was announced and a promising trailer debuted in the summer. In the meantime the graphic novels were published and whilst reading them it became clear that the story was so vast and so sprawling with its collection of oddball characters that a two hour movie was never going to work as it comprises the final three chapters of a six part story. If you are not a comic fan and a casual moviegoer then at the beginning of this movie you are not going to have a clue what is happening.

Southland Tales got a limited release in late 2007 and got slightly better reviews than when it debuted in Cannes. Cut by twenty minutes from the Cannes version, the film begins with Hollywood action star Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) waking up on a beach having lost his memory. Boxer has hooked up with porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who is in league with the neo Marxist underground movement based in Venice Beach, California who want to topple the government. As we learn from the narration of Iraq war veteran Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) the USA is a very different place in the run up to the election in Summer 2008. After a nuclear attack by terrorists in Texas, you now require interstate visas via thumbprint to travel. The internet and television is monitored by a government think tank called USIdent and police officers and soldiers patrol the coastline. Oh and also there is a new fuel called Fluid Karma, pioneered by a scientist called Baron Von Westphalen which also doubles up as a drug which causes human telepathy. The Neo Marxists oppose Usident and plan to use Boxer and a Venice beach police officer Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) and his twin brother Ronald, to disgrace the Republican candidate for the election.

Okay so that is the movie in a nutshell. What you don’t get from the movie is the back story contained in the graphic novels. This includes important information on the connection Roland Taverner and Pilot Abilene have, why Boxer Santaros has all the religious tattoos on his back and also the significance of Krysta Now’s prophetic screenplay The Power. By using this storytelling technique, Kelly essentially says ‘Fuck You if you don’t read comics’ to half his audience. There are so many moments and emotional beats in the finished film that mean nothing if you haven’t read the previous three chapters.

Kelly was asking a lot of his audience,and to be fair in the cut released in cinemas he does include a quick recap to bring newcomers up to speed. There again if you did read the books this recap is intrusive and boring. Even the most die hard Kelly fan who jumped through all the hoops to get to the beginning of the movie has to admit that the movie has problems. There are too many characters for a start. We get introduced to arms dealers, porn directors and politicians very few of whom serve any narrative purpose and at worst are annoying. The pacing is also erratic, we get long sequences in the middle which involve Krysta running around with a scandalous videotape and Boxer walking around in a daze. Then after this it seems to be a rush to get to the apocalyptic finale, which is the most thrilling part of the movie.

Despite all this I can say hand on heart that you have never seen anything quite like Southland Tales. It throws into a melting pot things like Kiss Me Deadly, Phillip K.Dick, The Book of Revelations and Repo Man and is a glorious mess. Dwayne Johnson is good in a lead role that asks him to do more than flex his muscles and raise one eyebrow. Sarah Michelle Gellar is merely adequate in her role never really raising her game beyond Paris Hilton like bimbo. The best turns here are surprisingly from Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake. Both give strong performances as traumatized war veterans who are now pawns in a game they don’t fully understand. Timberlake gets the standout sequence where he injects fluid karma and then hallucinates a musical number set to The Killers ‘All these things that I have done’. There is a subtle emotional core to this scene that the movie could have used more of. Its these two performances that save the movie for me. I wish that they could have expanded their roles a bit more as anyone who has seen and understood all this knows that essentially the bigger role of Boxer Santaros is basically a red herring all along.

The ending all comes together just about and will either make you want to watch it again to pick up on the things you missed or throw something at the screen. It has similar themes running through it to Donnie Darko, time out of joint, identity and memory all figure in the narrative and you may not catch everything first time round. Kelly also proves that along with Scorsese and Tarantino, he is one the best directors of scenes to music in the business. The film has a great score by Moby and some fantastic songs by the likes of Blur, Pixies, Jane’s Addiction and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

A word of warning though for anyone, the best way to enjoy this is read the graphic novels first. Then get the directors cut version which inexplicably appeared on Sky Movies and ITunes. This version eliminates some of the theatrical cuts flaws and adds back in a whole subplot and is the best way to enjoy the complete saga. If you must don’t bother spending £30 on the books and just watch the theatrical DVD cut. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Its undeniable that Richard Kelly is a talent behind the camera but this film will no doubt scar his career for some time to come. It seems that on this movie what he really needed was a strong producer to tell him no. I don’t often say this but some studio interference here and there may have done this movie a favor. As it is its more of a case of throw it all at the wall and see what sticks. Unfortunately Kelly’s last effort was The Box which was underappreciated and flopped at the box office. Hopefully he has learned some lessons from his second directorial outing and will make a superior vision up there with the likes of Donnie Darko before too long.

Chris Holt