Review of Southland Tales (2007) by Kimberly M — 11 Jan 2009

The two words that come to mind when thinking about this movie are "cinematic diarrhea". At first viewing, it's as if the director took a bunch of random ideas, visions and sounds and threw them all at a wall to see what would stick.

Despite all that, I actually found myself liking this movie a lot. The point is that there is no point. It makes fun of itself, of the main characters and most of all of the viewer. The dark satire is obvious and cartoonish but visceral.

Dwayne Johnson was fabulously hammy, and Justin Timberlake captured the trippiness of the whole movie. Just don't bother trying to make sense of the plot. My advice would be to not think about what you are seeing and just take each moment for what it is.

This is the kind of movie people will love or hate. I started off hating it, but it slowly grew on me as I got what the director was trying to say. My simple interpretation is "we're all screwed, so let's end the world with a wild party".