I saw this movie on release ages ago and it's not hard to fall in love with it at first.
Stephen Dorff's performance is really amazing. You never think for a moment he isn't Cliff Spab, with all the pent-up rage, pain, hostility and hilarity that it entails.
For the first half of the movie, it's really "the Cliff Spab/Stephen Dorff Show." He goes on a sort of Jack Kerouac road trip, bumping heads and rubbing noses with a variety of characters (and some wonderful actors who play them): Jake Busey (a good movie for once), Joey Lauren Adams (always terrific and smokin' hot here), and Pamela Gidley (quite a complex little cameo).
But after his odyssey ends, there doesn't seem to be much of a place to go...the film just stalls. I think the intent was for it to be completely character driven, so I wasn't expecting, well, a story-line or anything, but still.... I was hoping for more of a connection between the final scene, Spab's revelations, and the rest of the movie leading up to that point, but it didn't happen.
Never read the book, but it sounds like that ending would have made more sense. A movie this dark doesn't deserve a happy ending....a little too tidy, in my opinion. But SFW?
Stephen Dorff's performance is really amazing. You never think for a moment he isn't Cliff Spab, with all the pent-up rage, pain, hostility and hilarity that it entails.
For the first half of the movie, it's really "the Cliff Spab/Stephen Dorff Show." He goes on a sort of Jack Kerouac road trip, bumping heads and rubbing noses with a variety of characters (and some wonderful actors who play them): Jake Busey (a good movie for once), Joey Lauren Adams (always terrific and smokin' hot here), and Pamela Gidley (quite a complex little cameo).
But after his odyssey ends, there doesn't seem to be much of a place to go...the film just stalls. I think the intent was for it to be completely character driven, so I wasn't expecting, well, a story-line or anything, but still.... I was hoping for more of a connection between the final scene, Spab's revelations, and the rest of the movie leading up to that point, but it didn't happen.
Never read the book, but it sounds like that ending would have made more sense. A movie this dark doesn't deserve a happy ending....a little too tidy, in my opinion. But SFW?