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May 10, 2002
The Salton Sea
(out of four)
How far would you go to avenge your wife's brutal murder? Anyone can take Memento's lead and tattoo your memories of her all over your body, but would you dare take it one step further? Could you embrace her killers' lifestyle in order to bring them to justice?
In The Salton Sea, Danny Parker (Val Kilmer) plunges himself into the tweaker subculture that destroyed his life. But his plan involves more than just another undercover stunt, and the stakes are higher. For it to work, Parker must let go of his former self and accept addiction. He has to in order to get close to the volatile crew of crystal-meth users who hold the key to his revenge, but also as a way of cleansing his own demons.
Kilmer hasn't been hot since Heat, but he's back in top form here. Meanwhile, Vincent D'Onofrio gained 40 pounds to play a sleazy dealer named Pooh Bear, and though he nearly steals the show, he's not even the movie's most twisted character (that prize goes to Glenn Plummer, who keeps his girlfriend stuffed under his mattress).
The Salton Sea belongs to the post-Tarantino realm of self-consciously cool filmmaking, where style is the greatest drug of all. From the movie's opening scene, director D.J. Caruso confidently defines himself as the kind of director willing to set fire to a room full of $100 bills just to watch them burn. In their midst sits Danny Parker, playing the trumpet, dying. We see what he remembers, the twisted flashback of a former junkie crossed with the realization of what his life has become.
The movie owes its soul in equal parts to True Romance, Requiem for a Dream and even Lost Highway, and if you liked any of those films, you're likely to get a kick out of this mind-trip, too. Like Memento, The Salton Sea suggests the future of film noir. This is the next iteration of the neo-noir, where worlds under-lit and overshadowed by temptation and vice offer the perfect playground for narrative innovation.
[as featured on Moviefone.com]
Posted by Peter Debruge on