I told my good friend Josh that I'd be e-mailing my review of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia but tonight I changed my mind. It's 4:25 am on a Friday morning, I'm drunk and just had to fend off a 24 hour suspension on my license, and when I get home, what's on Showcase, but Kalifornia. The bitter irony of it all bade me to write this review.
I first saw the movie in the theater when it came out, and I distinctly remember wanting to punch Juliette Lewis' lights out, and thinking to myself, "If Brad Pitt snorts one more time!" But now, whether it's my own psychotic thoughts or just being able to accept Brad Pitt as an actor, I actually enjoyed the movie.
The story is thus; David Duchovny, of X-Files fame, plays a writer who, with his girlfriend, Michelle Roche of Star Trek NG (Ensign Roe), travels from Yankee heaven to California, stopping at sites of various grisly murders for the purpose of writing a coffee table book. And for the sake of Hollywood, along the way, they pick up Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis, who portray the kind of white trash that even the bastards in the Klan wouldn't recognize.
On the level, it comes across as just another bad Hollywood film, but on deeper inspection, someone is actually trying to do something here. Although Duchovny's narration lends itself to "here is the moral" attitudes at time, I firmly believe that the discerning viewer can cut the shit and enjoy this film. There comes a point in this film, where, although his lover is an alien in another incarnation, Duchovny is Brian, not Mulder, and Brad Pitt is not a sex symbol, but a believable, psychopathic maniac. That is the strength of a movie; if you can forget where you know the actors from, and just believe, they've got you.
The film is well shot on location in the southern U.S. and one can't help but feel that the cinematographer intended for you to feel isolated. The murder sites are well done by using a combination of live film and the stills shots (assumed to be taken by Carrie (Michelle Roche), Duchovny's love interest in the film.)
The film also delves into the area of 'where do we draw the line?" Brian and Early (Duchovny and Pitt) go off drinking and shooting pool. After a big piss up and a fight, Brian, much to his girlfriend's dismay, returns to the motel using Early's slang and portraying a similar attitude. The next day, they pull off the highway and take turns shooting out the windows of an abandoned building with Early's .45. In the latter parts of the film when Pitt's character is beyond redemption, Duchovny and Roche must decide how they can stop him, while staying within their own moral boundaries, and Lewis, the annoying airhead girlfriend of Pitt must to decide either to stay a six-year-old forever or face the facts.
Baron's Six Shooter…
4 slugs outta 6
by Baron Cameron (2000)
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