"If You've Come Looking For Truth, You've Come To The Wrong Place"

The Salton Sea (2002): 5/10

Poster (c) Warner Bros.

It’s surprising that Val Kilmer’s ego isn’t very low. He starred in the small release The Salton Sea, which, with its controversial topics and all, would not get much audience attendance. So for Castle Rock to get some money, they would go to desperate measures by plastering Kilmer’s name all over everything. Yet there’s no mention of him at all, which must be hurting to Kilmer. The studio would rather release a movie starless that go with Kilmer’s name.

In possibly one of the worst beginnings in film history, we see lots of drug users doing drugs. And instantly director D.J. Caruso wants us to think, “Wow, this is powerful. People do bad things.” It’s basically anything but. It’s only hard to watch. While he considers it to be enlightening, I consider it to be idiotic. Then people buy drugs. Then we find out two-thirds of the way through that the story has a purpose, and that Kilmer was undercover with the FBI to investigate drugs, while he was going on a Memento-ish crusade to avenge his wife’s murder.

While movies about drugs are alright, this one is so gritty, has so many unscrupulous characters that it’s impossible to find one redeeming quality about it. It even says that vengeance and drugs are good if it gets you to where you want to go. And to make matters worse, it’s shot in such a dark tone it’s impossible to see anything that’s happening with the throwaway cast, which includes Luiz Guzman, Doug Hutchison, Anthony LaPaglia, Peter Sarasgaard, and R. Lee Ermey. Only Vincent D’Onofrio stands out as actually doing something memorable as “Pooh-Bear”, the drug dealer without a nose.

As I said before, the first part of The Salton Sea is an atrocity. There’s nothing coherent going on, and it’s totally worthless. As it moves on towards an actual plot, it gets more involving, now that Caruso realizes that he brought the point across that drugs are bad, and goes into a story that’s partially interesting. The character of Pooh-Bear is quite different. For example, his idea of fun is tying pigeons to an RC car and simulating the Kennedy assassination. You don’t get that every day. And you don’t always get good drug movies every day. And this is not a good drug movie.

Rated R for strong violence, drug use, language and some sexuality.

Review Date: January 23, 2004