Review of 2 Days in the Valley (1996) by Anthony B — 17 Feb 2018

Managed to put off watching this notorious 90s cult film for 28 years and sadly wish I could have held out another 28 at least. 2 Days in the Valley is just bad, falling under the category of post-Tarantino, Pulp Fiction wannabe, 90s trash that is as obnoxious as it is stylized.

This film reminded me so much of another clunky, lesser known crime indie that came out around the same time called Jerry and Tom Starring Sam Rockwell and Joe Mantegna. Both films are annoyingly lame because ironically they try so hard to be cool, and apart from cool, neither film knows what it wants to be.

Much like Jerry and Tom, 2 Days in the Valley isn't funny, dramatic, or even remotely interesting despite the game cast involved. 2 Days in the Valley squanders its hefty list of heavyweight players who at the time were in their prime and had hit their cinematic peak.

The biggest atrocity committed in this movie was the misuse (or lack thereof) of Jeff Daniels. His slow burn portrayal of a ticking time bomb detective is spot on but he only gets maybe three real scenes to own before his character's story comes to an abrupt, unsatisfying end.

On the upside, the legendary Danny Aiello is pretty amusing to watch as a bumbling, out of practice, nice guy hitman who spends majority of the film fumbling with his toupee. Oh, and we also get to see Charlize Theron naked, and I'm saying that as a cinephile not a perv because it was her first nude scene ever which makes it a part of cinema history.

.. plus she's hot.