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Southland Tales (2006)

Director: Richard Kelly

Time Out rating

Average user rating

3 reviews

Synopsis

Richard Kelly follows up Donnie Darko with this post-apocalyptic freak-out.

Movie review

From Time Out London

A vision gone mad for a world gone mad? More coherent and less grandiose than his infamous Cannes rough-cut, Richard Kelly’s film is still a mess – but what a mess. Like his genre-bending cult debut ‘Donnie Darko’, it’s an end-of-days pulp-prophesy. But this time, political steamrollers personal as terrorists, politicians, porn stars, actors, singers, soldiers and scientists collide in a paranoid fantasy of dystopian America the day after tomorrow. No one, it seems, is in on Kelly’s epic conspiracy: Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Justin Timberlake are mere cartoon ciphers, winging it in the most eccentric cast so far this century. Unlike ‘Donnie Darko’, there’s no glimmer of intimacy here – this is not about people – although Seann William Scott’s double performance aches with a strange, unknowable poignancy.

Evolving like a fever dream conjured by the mind-blowing drug that propels Timberlake into a lip-sync of The Killers’ ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’, Kelly’s apocalyptic carnival near bursts its veins with ideas. All fascinating, all discombobulated. Blurring between genres (sci-fi, satire, comedy), this post-9/11 meta-world is hopelessly clogged with multi-referencing (movies, literature, media, music) and criss-cross plotlines – a bizarre spectacle lost in the flux of its undeveloped non-sequiturs.

But, of course, ‘Southland Tales’ is one of those rare, impossible oddities that cinema would be poorer without. Kelly, aged 32, has more ideas than he knows what to do with and the balls to go for broke. And by the climax, his truly ambitious, truly flawed film finally disappears into the ‘time-space rift’ (or whatever) to achieve some sort of cosmic transcendence.

Author: Jonathan Crocker

Time Out London Issue 1946: December 5-11 2007

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User reviews of this film

raven19906 said...

Posted on May 20 2008 04:37 I had never herd of the film before I started watching it.(yes i live under a rock) At first the plot was slow to start but with the all star cast I had high hopes that it will be a good movie. 1 hr into the film i stopped caring, but still watched to see the world end. When the movie ended before showing the world ripped apart by the tidal forses of time i found my self asking the movie (In a VERY loud voice) "Who do you think you are!!!". Over all seeing the Rock say that thing about being a pimp, and that guy being hit by that car made the movie worth watching once.

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Ray Penbar said...

Posted on Mar 19 2008 11:58 This movie is a load of pretentious self conscious trying to be hip bullshit. In other words a trainwreck of a film. Do I hate it? Nope. I don't even dislike it. I 'nothing' it. Which is the worst thing for a film such as this. Rarely funny for being a 'comedic take' on the apocalypse. And not much headspace for thoughts even though it's supposed to be sci-fi. Some ppl say he's emulating Phillip K. Dick - these ppl shit the bed. Clearly. Still, if you have a masochistic need to watch a film fail spectacularly this is quite interesting. Oh and kudos to the actors for not looking embarassed despite saying lines like "I'm a pimp. And pimps don't commit suicide." and my personal fav "The fourth dimension will collapse you stupid bitch."

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Stephen Pearce said...

Posted on Dec 06 2007 10:38 I had high hopes for this film...and all of them were fulfilled."Southland Tales" is not just the best film i have seen all year but also one of the best films of all time.I will see it again...no question.

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