This was one of those movies I genuinely wanted to be good. Boogie Nights, another film from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, is literally one of my favorite movies ever. Based on the interesting characters and vitality of the story and screenwork of Boogie Nights, I fervently hoped Inherent Vice would follow in its footsteps. It would seem that those big shoes left behind by Boogie Nights may have been too big to fill and that my hopes were doomed to be dashed on the rocks of disappointment.
I'm not quite sure what the movie is about other than what IMDB contributer Huggo says, "1971. Larry Sportello - better known as Doc (Joaquin Phoenix) - is a pot head hippie private eye based out of Gordita Beach in southern California. He is approached by ex-lover, Shasta Fay Hempworth (Katherine Waterston), who believes her current boyfriend, married land developer Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), is the target of an abduction attempt by his wife and her lover. In helping Shasta, Doc not only goes on a search for Wolfmann, but others who go missing, including Shasta, and one who is assumed to be murdered. Along the way, Doc gets involved with a crazy cast of characters and a wide variety of issues including politics, cults, prostitution, the drug trade and dentistry, most of it surrounding the mysterious "Golden Fang." Along for most of the ride is LAPD detective Christian Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) - Bigfoot to most who know him - who is strait laced on the outside, but has a dark underside, which is supported by a hefty therapy bill."
Did you get all that and how it fits together? Neither did I. This is one of those movies that is trying too hard to be more than it is and fails miserably as each attempt to be more clever and complex falls flat on its face. Far from being clever, this is a muddled mess that can't decide what it wants to be. What starts off as a promising film noir rapidly flies off the rails as Anderson also tries to make it an edgy drug film along the lines of Trainspotting or Pulp Fiction. As I soldiered on through the very dense story meeting newer and more surreal characters and situations as the story plodded on, I became more and more confused and angry. The movie has a feeling that the script was being written while it was being shot, a la The Big Sleep. Unfortunately, Phoenix and Waterston are not Bogey and Bacall and cannot carry this drug-fueled melange of crap to any comprehensible ending. To make matters worse, Doc is an extreme pot head, who is very paranoid and gets flashbacks that may or may not be real, but yet are presented to us with everything else, blurring the lines of fantasy and reality. We are in Doc's drug-addled brain, and it's not a pretty sight, because, like Doc, at times we don't know what is real or unreal. In the end, I was left with a huge question mark over my head and asking myself, "What the hell just happened?" The story makes no sense, is too complex with too many peripheral characters that give no flow or context to anything in the movie. The movie is killed by its own pretentiousness and earnestness. Ultimately, what promised to be a sumptuous feast was really of mouthful of lard mixed with bacon grease and crap. Do not waste your time and especially your money on this stinkburger.
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