2 Days in the Valley

Hatcher hires Spader to kill her ratbag of a husband. That's the stone tossed into the pool: the ripples take in Mazursky's suicidal film director, Daniels' and Stoltz's variously troubled cops, Cruttwell's travails with a kidney stone, and more. The result is not so much complexity as a mildly entertaining collection of rather superficial short stories; or perhaps it's best described as an elementary elaboration of a greater number of subsidiary characters than usual, inside a piece of pulp fiction. Smoothly constructed, for such a busy piece of work, and Hatcher's ascent to stardom continues.