The Salton Sea (2002)

The Salton Sea
2002
Dir. DJ Caruso

Convoluted would seem to be the key term here.
The thing is, I liked "The Salton Sea" up until it was over. In fact, I liked everything a lot up until the very end, which, for me, is something I could overlook if the rest of the movie was stellar.
But it wasn't.
Not that it was bad. Like I said, I liked it for the most part, and if you have the time it's worth a look. The supporting cast here works pretty well (although it's becoming increasingly clear to me that Adam Goldberg is probably known as "the Jew" in Hollywood circles) and its nice to remember that Val Kilmer could carry a movie at one point.
Once again though, the movie swan dives into mounds of horse crap when it finally gets around to telling you what's actually going on.
Without revealing too much about the story, I'll say (write) this; the movie is strongest when we are watching Kilmer in the life of the junkie. The flashbacks of his "previous self" are buzz kills. They are cheesy, poorly acted add-ons that serve more to discredit the story than add any emotion. The two detectives (Doug Hutchison and Anthony LaPaglia) are good, well rounded characters and I'm more or less okay with where their piece of the story wound up.
Pooh-Bear (Vincent D'Onofrio) was an embarrassingly obvious attempt at creating a character who would be memorable for his little (big) "quirks" (that's the best word I can think of right now).
I guess when it comes down to it I can't really say I liked it, but I certainly didn't hate it...

No trailer this time. Sorry

Apologies for rambling