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Down in the Valley
By Kirk HoneycuttHollywood Reporter, May 15, 2005"Down in the Valley" might have come off as conceptually sound on paper, but onscreen the whole idea falls apart. Writer-director David Jacobson ("Dahmer") imagines a man with mental problems and a broken childhood taking refuge in the mythos of the Old West, thereby turning Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley into one big dude ranch. The movie offers up cowboys, outlaw love, fugitives from justice, gunfights, escapes on horseback and a fiery showdown all within sight of freeway overpasses and suburban sprawl. Edward Norton serves as star and producer, but even his star power won't help this misfire reach a wide domestic audience. The film might play better in Europe, where ambivalence to the American cowboy mentality is part of the cultural dialogue. But even that is a big maybe. Harlan (Norton) drifts into town in classic Western style with only a few possessions. The movie plays games for a while as to where the story is set since the locations do not immediately read as L.A. Harlan fatefully meets Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood), short for October. Tobe is a young teen in full rebellion against her single dad, Wade (David Morse). Wade, who is a sheriff, is clueless about how to deal with his daughter and her 13-year-old brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin). On an outing to the beach with her girlfriends, Tobe takes a shine to Harlan, whom everyone calls Tex and picks him up. Before the day is over, she seduces him, and Harlan is smitten. Tobe's dating a guy twice her age who is obviously a loser doesn't sit well with her dad. For a while, the movie plays a second game with its audience, asking us to guess who is the crazier adult in the story. Harlan enacts Western movie scenes with a real gun in front of his apartment mirror -- you know, like De Niro's mirror grandstanding in "Taxi Driver." Meanwhile, Wade talks darkly about his contempt for the "meek," and despite being a law officer, he doesn't hesitate to level a gun at Harlan in front of his son. It's clear soon enough, though, that Harlan is the wacko. When anger gets the better of him, he commits a terrible crime and persuades Lonnie to escape with him on horseback into the hills above the valley. Now in real life, the LAPD would send helicopters and a fleet of squad cars to flush out a dangerous criminal. But Jacobson would have us believe only a carload of officers head after the outlaw for a shootout on, yes, a Western movie set with extras in period costumes. Norton and Morse are both superb performers, which here is part of the problem. They invest too much actorly angst and moodiness in roles that are more than a little crazy. Bruce Dern, as an old coot quick to reach for his rifle, has a better approach: He plays the campy nuttiness to the hilt. The two young actors in the more contemporary, non-Western roles come off better. Wood and Culkin are touchingly naive in their acceptance of Harlan's delusions, though the reason for their rebellion against their father is never articulated. Similar plot holes might spring from postproduction problems. For instance, Ellen Burstyn is listed on the credit crawl but doesn't make the final cut. Transitions are missing, backstories are vague and characters make references to things not in the movie. Even so, the movie goes on too long with false climaxes and a maudlin ending that probably should have been cut. Wasted are Enrique Chediak's anamorphic widescreen lensing and Franco Carbone's production design, which seeks out the Old West empty spaces that still exist in the San Fernando Valley. DOWN IN THE VALLEY
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