I was not really expecting how funny this movie was. I remembered the trailer, especially the shot where Joaquin Phoenix gets shouldered so hard by a cop that he flies nearly off screen, but it ended up being funnier the way it was presented in the movie.
From the very first lines of dialogue, Doc, our hero, is in way over his head. His former hippie ex-girlfriend shows up and asks him to investigate a real estate mogul, his wife, and a plot to have him committed to a loony bin. It's obvious from that start, that Doc is never going to catch up with the plot in any meaningful way.
What's interesting is that Doc spends almost the entire movie following a trail of breadcrumbs without ever actually doing anything himself or witnessing anything. It's a noir where the "hero" always shows up too late and everyone around him does everything just to fill him in on it later. Considering the level of drug use in the film, that seems to be a deliberate choice. Doc cannot catch up because he has trouble deciphering reality from his own drug-fueled haze. There are moments that seem to suggest that Doc talks to people who aren't there.
After two hours, we finally get what could be called a character action, and it almost ends up feeling incidental. Doc shows up at the office of a guy who's constantly almost in and then out of prison (being some kind of enforcer and police informant at the same time). Doc knows he needs to be there because he's there, but when he gets asked why he's there he can't explain it. It's only when the big Aryan Brother with the swastika tattooed on his face walks into the room that a wave of realization comes over him about why he might be there, and by then it's too late. We've seen this guy here and there, always on his tail having some connection to the disappearance to the real estate mogul and the murder that Doc gets framed for (poorly) at the beginning of the film.
Falling in with the idea that everyone knows what's going on except Doc, the Aryan ties up Doc with the implicit threat of torture and death. This kicks Doc out of his laconic mood to the point where he actually fights back. It's not in service to the plot that Doc suddenly becomes a player, it's in the service of his own survival.
Throughout the film, Doc has several interactions with Bigfoot, a police detective who's trying to follow some of the same leads as Doc. The two are mirror images of each other. Doc the rudderless hippie versus Bigfoot the crewcut cop. They cross paths, exchange information, and steadily grow more similar as Doc grows a bit from the situation and Bigfoot gets further and further humiliated, falling further and further behind in the plot as they go. Because the plot of the film actually doesn't matter though, Bigfoot is putting great importance on something that doesn't matter leading him to busting down Doc's door and eating a pile of Doc's weed.
I think that this is a movie that will grow with me over time. I had a good idea of what I was getting into going in. I knew that there was little to no action, that it was long, and that it was drug-fueled. That mostly prepared me for the film, but the miasma on top kept my focus a bit more than the underlying ideas, and I think more viewings will get me to appreciate those more. As it stands, though, I was able to laugh consistently through the film.
A note on that, to bring this all together from the beginning. That shot of Doc flying from the shoulder by the cop in the trailer is played straight there. Normal sound effects and dialogue. In the film, the sound has dropped off and we hear the laconic female voice over waxing a certain poetic tone about Doc's situation and mindset. As we hear that, we watch the tone shatter with the shoulder, but the voice over makes no mention of what happened on screen and simply continue. It's a really funny juxtaposition of sound and sight, the sort of humor that pervades the film.
From the very first lines of dialogue, Doc, our hero, is in way over his head. His former hippie ex-girlfriend shows up and asks him to investigate a real estate mogul, his wife, and a plot to have him committed to a loony bin. It's obvious from that start, that Doc is never going to catch up with the plot in any meaningful way.
What's interesting is that Doc spends almost the entire movie following a trail of breadcrumbs without ever actually doing anything himself or witnessing anything. It's a noir where the "hero" always shows up too late and everyone around him does everything just to fill him in on it later. Considering the level of drug use in the film, that seems to be a deliberate choice. Doc cannot catch up because he has trouble deciphering reality from his own drug-fueled haze. There are moments that seem to suggest that Doc talks to people who aren't there.
After two hours, we finally get what could be called a character action, and it almost ends up feeling incidental. Doc shows up at the office of a guy who's constantly almost in and then out of prison (being some kind of enforcer and police informant at the same time). Doc knows he needs to be there because he's there, but when he gets asked why he's there he can't explain it. It's only when the big Aryan Brother with the swastika tattooed on his face walks into the room that a wave of realization comes over him about why he might be there, and by then it's too late. We've seen this guy here and there, always on his tail having some connection to the disappearance to the real estate mogul and the murder that Doc gets framed for (poorly) at the beginning of the film.
Falling in with the idea that everyone knows what's going on except Doc, the Aryan ties up Doc with the implicit threat of torture and death. This kicks Doc out of his laconic mood to the point where he actually fights back. It's not in service to the plot that Doc suddenly becomes a player, it's in the service of his own survival.
Throughout the film, Doc has several interactions with Bigfoot, a police detective who's trying to follow some of the same leads as Doc. The two are mirror images of each other. Doc the rudderless hippie versus Bigfoot the crewcut cop. They cross paths, exchange information, and steadily grow more similar as Doc grows a bit from the situation and Bigfoot gets further and further humiliated, falling further and further behind in the plot as they go. Because the plot of the film actually doesn't matter though, Bigfoot is putting great importance on something that doesn't matter leading him to busting down Doc's door and eating a pile of Doc's weed.
I think that this is a movie that will grow with me over time. I had a good idea of what I was getting into going in. I knew that there was little to no action, that it was long, and that it was drug-fueled. That mostly prepared me for the film, but the miasma on top kept my focus a bit more than the underlying ideas, and I think more viewings will get me to appreciate those more. As it stands, though, I was able to laugh consistently through the film.
A note on that, to bring this all together from the beginning. That shot of Doc flying from the shoulder by the cop in the trailer is played straight there. Normal sound effects and dialogue. In the film, the sound has dropped off and we hear the laconic female voice over waxing a certain poetic tone about Doc's situation and mindset. As we hear that, we watch the tone shatter with the shoulder, but the voice over makes no mention of what happened on screen and simply continue. It's a really funny juxtaposition of sound and sight, the sort of humor that pervades the film.