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movie review - The Salton Sea

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is a recent Val Kilmer movie about a man living the speed-freak lifestyle in crummy ol' LA. He's pretty much reached rock bottom as a snitch working for some creepy DEA cops and spending his days in a haze of methamphetamine.

But he's also a trumpet player who's lost his wife, and who is seeking revenge against the crooks who executed her when he and she turned up at the wrong place (another meth lab) at the wrong time (during an invasion by men with machine guns).

With solid performances by Kilmer, Deborah Unger, Vincent D'Onofrio and Peter Saarsgard, (Anthony Lapaglia, Luis Guzman, just about the entire cast, really) and a slippery plot that winds its way among horrifying characters and terrifying situations, it's an interesting if unpleasant film. As with some movies set in other cities, this one features the LA prominently as something more than just a setting. It reminds me of other LA films such as to live and die in LA and Brown's Requiem that bounced and skidded along in the city's teeming, oddly-lit underworld.

Recommended.