SOUTHLAND TALES
In Los Angeles 2008, It's The End Of World (And I Feel Relieved)
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "Southland Tales"
By Omar P.L. Moore/November 16, 2007
Dwayne Johnson as Boxer Santaros, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Krysta
Kapowski/Krysta Now, and Mandy Moore as Madeline Frost Santaros, Boxer's wife,
in Richard Kelly's wicked satire, "Southland Tales", which opened today in
selected U.S. cities. (All photos: Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Richard Kelly's long-awaited film "Southland Tales" (which was
shot in 2005) doesn't work as a film in terms of structure -- it is more a
series of episodes that would play well on Showtime After Dark as a hilarious
and energetic jumble of breezy, oddly comic interactions -- but as satire it is
excellent, rip-roaring stuff. Thankfully satire is the name of the game in
Mr. Kelly's film, which was once nearly three hours long, but has now been
edited to a far more respectable two hours and fifteen minutes. Set
ostensibly in Los Angeles in 2008 after a nuclear attack on American soil in
Abilene, Texas (dubbed by one news outlet as an "American Hiroshima") AND in the
midst of a contentious presidential campaign -- it's Clinton-Lieberman vs.
Eliot-Frost -- and it just so happens that Frost's daughter Madeline (Mandy
Moore) is married to Boxer Santaros (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), a Republican
actor (as Mr. Johnson is in real life) who is a fugitive and under threat from
the neo-Marxists, a subversive political group threatening to sabotage the
election and fight their nemesis, the fascist element they call the Los Angeles
Police Department, duly renamed the Urban Pacification Unit (or UPU for short.)
As it turns out, the Neo-Marxists have one of the UPU's officers, Roland
Tavernier (Sean William Scott, in a trance-like state) in its custody, having
drugged and kidnapped him. (In all likelihood Boxer, an amnesia victim, is
meant to represent the current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
Boxer is a study in bad acting, as are the rest of the cast, but all of this is
clearly intentional for the purposes of the film and its satirical
underpinnings.) "Southland" also does a reverse on T.S. Eliot's "The
Hollow Men" poem of 1925 with its final lines, "this is the way the world
ends/not with a bang but with a whimper", reversing the last part, in its
declaration that the world "ends not with a whimper but with a bang."
There's so much going on in "Southland Tales", and more than a little of it is
thought-provoking, including the way race and interracial marriage and
partnership post-O.J. Simpson 1995 criminal trial in L.A. is played out in Mr.
Kelly's film. Social commentary on this and many other topics, including
womens' behavior and political campaigns and scandals played out in the guise of
24-hour news media, with U.S. war tanks sponsored by Hustler Magazine, and car
commercials no longer needing women to sell the sex aspect/stereotypical
implications of vehicles. For in an automatic world, where I-Phones and
DVRs reign supreme, why even use humans at all? Products sell themselves.
The very funny car commercial exemplifies this, and to fine effect. There
is even a science-fiction aspect to the film, and "Tales" also rips bad movie
dialogue. As stated earlier, all of the actors are purposely giving
renditions of bad acting -- which fits perfectly within the construct of
"Southland Tales", a dreamy, subversive and dead-eyed indictment of the City of
Angels, in all its inanity (and insanity.) If audiences are able to
discern that this is all for show, then they will no doubt enjoy this farcical
romp.
The film recalls the zaniness of Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks!" and the
spontaneity of Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" and Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs",
with the irreverence one might expect to find in a John Waters film.
("Southland Tales" has a little bit of taste than Mr. Waters might like though,
and it is smart enough to wink at itself on more than one occasion.) On
its own, Mr. Kelly's film knows how to provoke and push buttons and it largely
succeeds before hitting a lull midway between the second and third acts.
Even after that however, there are some amusing moments and one-liners (most of
them delivered by Mr. Johnson, who is great here as Boxer.) Mr. Kelly
wrote three graphic novels as a "Southland" trilogy, and the three are the basis
for his scripted film, in which American religious fundamentalism plays a
sizable role in the story's apocalyptic themes. The rapture is depicted in
a way that is also quite funny. Krysta Kapowski (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is
a former porn-star turned talk show host Krysta Now, and Miranda Richardson is a
treat to watch as Nana Mae Frost, monitoring the entire world of Planet La-La
Land in her itsy-bitsy control tower that looks more like the interior of a
space ship.
Wood Harris as Dion Warner/Dion Element, and Amy Poehler as Veronica Mung/Dream,
in "Southland Tales".
Los Angeles, thought of by many as a superficial and pretentious American city,
is in Mr. Kelly's opera an all-knowing community in 2008, and the USIdent
program has its surveillance eyes trained on all inhabitants of the U.S.A.
The Neo-Marxists have devised an alternative system called USIdeath to counter,
lending its own opinions about the Homeland Security system. Fingerprints
are used in a crude and violent way in Mr. Kelly's film, and negotiations with
world leaders just don't exist anymore. "Southland Tales", which plays
much smarter than its B-movie feel may suggest, also features a hypnotic and
somewhat unrecognizable Justin Timberlake as an "is he alive or is he Memorex?"
American soldier who has apparently been left for dead after a tour of duty in
Iraq. Mr. Timberlake plays his character Abilene as dumbed-down as
possible, but this whole Tinseltown fiasco of a story is in fact being told
through his hallucinogenic eyes. He is the film's floating conscience, and
a life-saver, at that, even in the most crude and impossible moments for some of
the film's more major characters. There's a powerful moment when Mr.
Timberlake (formerly of the pop group N'Sync) dances a dance that would have
been perfectly executed by the late Robert Palmer, if he were still here with
us. This dance video moment is perfectly choreographed -- a haunting mix
of war and sex and healing and consumerism -- selling war as a music video --
not far off the path of the 1991 Iraq War, when Kuwait was invaded. Then,
U.S. General Norman Schwartzkopf memorably showed the world night scope imagery
of battles that looked like a video game -- even some mainstream U.S. media news
reporters dubbed the war as "The Nintendo War".
"Southland Tales" may be an acquired taste for some, but it is a taste that will
leave you smiling, even if you are bewildered -- and if you are, then Mr. Kelly
and his cast of eclectic names from the comedy and film world of Los Angeles and
parts beyond, have done their jobs well.
"Southland Tales" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association
of America for language, violence, sexual material and some drug content.
There is one brief moment of graphic violence. The film's duration is two
hours and 15 minutes. "Southland Tales" is now playing in New York, Los
Angeles and opened today in San Francisco and several other U.S. cities.
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