Review of Inherent Vice (2014) by Joshua B — 18 Jan 2015

Sometimes there are movies that try very hard to be good and edgy yet fail because they are self absorbed and confused. Inherent Vice is the best example I can think of that meets these criteria in the last several years.

The movie is star studded and the idea could have been fun. It's half film noir, 1/2 detective story with 70's melancholy. However the film just becomes a mess of too many characters, confusing subplots and quirky jokes that mostly fail.

The biggest failure with this movie is how slow and long it is. Perhaps if the film was 2/3 the length and had less convoluted stories it would have been a lot better. I was frankly very disappointed. Rarely do I feel like leaving a movie before it's over but this was pretty darned close.