“My best friend. He is a pimp. And pimps don’t commit suicide.”

ZombieDog’s rating: Quantum Entangled

ZombieDog’s review: So how do cult movies come to be? Is there some director or writer out there who says to themselves that they want to make something so unusual it will only appeal to a very narrow segment of viewers? I like to think that it’s a magical process that occurs which is beyond description — but nevertheless results in a wonderful collision of intent versus result.

Southland Tales feels like one of those movies that almost immediately went off the rails and had every actor in it holding a different vision of the movie they thought they were in. The main storyline is that America has been nuked, the result of which is that we basically entered a perpetual state of martial law. New policing agencies are introduced, and the feeling of extreme oppression sweeps the nation. Combine that with depleting oil reserves and you have a populace on the edge of revolt.

This is director Richard Kelly’s first movie after Donnie Darko. It stars The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) and too many other notable actors to mention, including a fair portion are SNL alums who mostly play off type. Strangely enough it works. Imagine John Lovitz as a stone-cold killer. Johnson himself plays an anxiety riddled-paranoid actor who is desperately trying to get his script made into a movie. It’s a far cry from modern day Dwayne Johnson who plays the unstoppable tough guy, so it’s nice to know that The Rock is capable of breaking typecast.

The real problem is this movie has “Second Album Syndrome” written all over it. Donnie Darko was such an underground cult sensation that the pressure to make his next movie equal his first must’ve been immense. Southland Tales feels like he started off specifically to make a cult film à la Sharknado.

Unfortunately, due to the casting of actors that had zero chemistry, a disjointed storyline, and an overall surreal setting, he wound up making an actual cult movie despite his efforts to make a synthetic one. If it was done on purpose or by accident; either way, the result was brilliant.

Donnie Darko had a very similar setting. However, the main character of Donnie was the central focus and held the movie together as we tried to figure out the world he was in. Southland Tales offers no such character. Boxer Santos (Johnson) is supposed to be the character that holds the movie together, but he’s pulled from one extreme to the other and doesn’t really give us a chance to gain insight into the situation.

There’s not a lot of information given to pull this story together. I have watched this movie multiple times and maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the one who is simply not getting it, and others are following the story just fine. Although, given its 5.3 IMDb rating, the critics hating it, and low box office. I might be on something.

That being said, I have a strange attraction to this movie. It pulls me in every time, even though I’m still mostly confused. It’s hypnotic and ethereal. Above all, it is prophetic in that it describes a society going through a forced change that it doesn’t want. Imagine politicians not being who people think they are, billionaires engaging in bizarre projects, segments of society overreacting to the point of insanity. I believe the movie was intended to be satire, instead it became a reflection of who we are.

I normally don’t read a lot about movies before I write a review, as I like my reaction to be personal. However, in this case, I kind of felt the need to touch base with other points of view. As I expected reactions or across the board people love and hate this film. In many respects I could see this movie being influenced by David Lynch (RIP) with its embracing of the surreal and it almost stream of consciousness type of storytelling.

I might even go as far to suggest that the film takes place in the Repo Man universe. In particular the final scene, if not influenced Repo Man, certainly could be seen as a homage.

The real crime here is they only gave Richard Kelly one more movie after this (2009’s The Box with Cameron Diaz), after which he was seemingly banished from Hollywood. This is the symptom that needs to be addressed. Whether or not Kelly was making films out of the ether doesn’t really matter in my opinion. We see so much cookie-cutter/blockbuster crap thrown our way it’s possible that we lose the ability to think of film in any other way. There’s nothing wrong with being confused at a movie. Sometimes, just sometimes, a movie may have to stew in your brain for days, weeks, or even years for it to truly reveal its nature.

So, is Southland Tales any good? Wow…. It’s truly a difficult question to answer. From my perspective I think the movie is absolutely worth your time and is a bona fide cult film. I also think there are those out there who have very sound coherent arguments and say the exact opposite.

I stand by my statement, although there is no doubt in my mind this movie is flawed. If I had to pin this on a single thing it would have to be casting. The dog pile of notable actors who wanted to appear in this project was staggering. An actor, no matter how good, always carries with them some preconception of who and what they are. Typecasting, while not as bad as it used to be, is still an issue. It is possible to suspend disbelief on a few, but 20 actors are just too much. Don’t let any of this stop you though. The movie is interesting enough to at least merit a watch.