Review of Southland Tales (2007) by Alistair W — 31 Jan 2010

What in the blue Hell was this?

Richard Kelly brings us 'Southland Tales', his directorial follow up to 2001s 'Donnie Darko', and you can certainly tell he did it.

The follow up has a plot line that is so topsy-turvy I'll try my best to explain. We start off with Abilene, Texas being the victim of a nuclear attack, which causes World War Three with America battling N. Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria. An agency called US-Ident is brought in to spy on everyone and is somehow related to Baron von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn), a scientist who has created an alternate source of power so America no longer needs oil because the above countries which America went to war with has run out, and is somehow a villain because of this. A Neo-Marxist, named Deep Throat made up of porn stars (don't ask), decides to fight this group, by planning to blackmail Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson), an actor who has amnesia, but has political ties, by using Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott), by having him playing his twin brother who turns out to be him from some rift cloning thing and getting incriminating video footage with Boxer. Boxer meanwhile has written a film script, along with porn star-turned-chat show host Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), which depicts the apocalypse taking place, and it turns out the apocalypse is taking place in exactly the same way.

Simples.

That was one of the many bad things of this film, a plot line that was so confusing it was...terrible, just terrible. And do you want to know how the apocalypse was caused? No? Too bad. It all started with von Westphalen's device which creates an alternate source of power, called Karma Fluid. The device is powered by the waves of the ocean, and somehow this causes the Earth's roataion to slow by 0.00000006 miles an hour per day, which disrupts the chemical equilibrium in the human brain, causing them to commit crimes. That's right, even the apocalypse doesn't make sense. Just like 'Donnie Darko'. However at least the apocalypse in 'Donnie Darko' was caused by a universe ending paradox, this one is caused by the ocean for some reason. A similar apocalypse was done in 2003s 'The Core' where the Earth stopped rotating. In that the electromagnetic field was failing which was causing pacemakers to fail, pigeons to fly into everything, and the Golden Gate bridge to melt like butter, but no criminal behaviour. Strangely enough the stuff that happens in 'The Core' does not happen in 'Southland Tales'.

The slowing of the Earth causes a rift in space (look blank), which the US government decides to send Boxer, an actor, rather than a trained specialist, which causes Boxer to go back in time and accidentaly killed his past self (which doesn't kill the future self). In order to send him through they hire Roland to kidnap and send him through, which led to Roland being cloned and that's why there's two of them.

The film has a lot of sex references, and by a lot I mean pretty much the whole film. From the porn stars and porn star chat shows to terrorist cells called Deep Throat, songs about teen masturbation and cars humping one another in an advert. That's right, cars humping. It's just terrible for a film, it makes you think you're watching a porno.

We then have Private Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake), our narrator, who has a knack of quoting Revelation and taking drugs. There was one random scene in which Abilene does a musical number whilst nurses dance around him.

Then again he is one of the best actors in this film, one of the two in fact, the best being Dwayne Johnson. Johnson is great, even if the character he is playing is terrible. Everyone else however is terrible, the worst being Sarah Michelle Gellar. What happened to her 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' acting? In this she was so wooden and dull.

But for some bizarre reason, despite how awful this film is, there is something that keeps you wanting to watch it, I guess for me it was wanting the apocalypse to actually happen so that everyone would die. In addition to that I actually applauded when some characters got shot and died, those were some of the hated characters.

This film was booed at it's premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and I can see why.