Review of Inherent Vice (2014) by Elliot P — 11 Jan 2015

What's with all the negative reviews of Inherent Vice? It's one of Paul Thomas Anderson's best films, certainly his funniest, and to boot, has more to say than There Will Be Blood, which is criminally overrated.

Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin have chemistry unlike any other duo I've seen in a film, as the stoner detective and his arch nemesis, the morally rigid cop who is as grudgingly dependent on him as the other is his foe.

While the plot is rather murky, it's obviously completely intentional and the movie wouldn't work as an adaptation of a typically labyrinthine Thomas Pynchon novel if not for it. All I can say is that any one dislikes this movie because it's confusing plot, yet claims to "love" The Big Lebowski, is either being pretentious or has as incapable a memory as that of the hero of this wonderful movie.