The Salton Sea
(2002)
review by Head Cheeze

Following his turn as Batman, Val Kilmer had become a bit of box-office poison, which probably had as much to do with his notoriously big ego as it did with the actor's film selection (which, in turn had become seemingly limited thanks to the former). When Kilmer headlined a film, it seemed as if audiences ran the other way screaming (Red Planet, Joe the King, The Saint, etc), but it also seemed as if Kilmer was simply on auto-pilot in these flicks, never even hinting at the brilliance he'd displayed in films where he played "supporting" roles, such as Heat and Tombstone. Now, it seems, Kilmer has shifted his focus back to the character centered films that made him a star in the first place, and The Salton Sea marks the return to form with a vengeance.

Kilmer plays a jazz musician named Tom Van Allen. When he and his wife are caught in a drug related crossfire while vacationing out at the Salton Sea, his wife is killed, and he is badly injured, but the physical injuries were nothing compared to the emotional ones. Van Allen drops off the face of the Earth, and re-emerges as Danny Parker, a fast talking tweaker, and full time informant for a pair of shady Vice cops (Lapaglia and Gus Morgan). Danny becomes a pawn in a huge undercover score that involves a quarter of a million dollars of methamphetamine. The cops want Danny to lead them to one of the west's most prolific purveyors of the "gak", a noseless homicidal bumpkin named Pooh Bear (D'Onofrio, once again showing why he is one of America's greatest character actors). It's when this deal begins to materialise that the worlds of Danny and Tom collide, and all preconceptions are thrown out the window, with one twist after another leading to a coda of redemption and rediscovery that keeps the viewer in a constant state of guessing.

The Salton Sea is a marvelous piece of filmmaking in the vein of films like The Usual Suspects and Memento, where what you see isn't exactly the point. It's what you don't see that you have to pay heed to. Is there enough Tom Van Allen left in the wasted human vehicle that is Bobby Parker to set the character back on track, or has Van Allen been in the driver's seat all along? The Salton Sea is a classic guessing game, propelled by a deft screenplay by Tony Gayton and wonderously visualized by director Caruso.

The Warner DVD features a batch of welcome extras, including "Embracing The Chaos": A Conversation with the Cast of The Salton Sea; "Meth And Method": Production Design for The Salton Sea, as well as the film's theatrical trailer. Sadly, no commentary track is afforded the viewer, which is a shame because Sea is such a fascinating film that it's almost a crime not to have the folks behind it weigh in with their perceptions. Still, the featurettes are fairly informative bits and work in a pinch.

Eclipsed by the furor surrounding that other memory lapse film, Memento, The Salton Sea is only now finding it's audience on home video. Fans of films that keep them on their toes should definitely give this pulpy-noir thriller a look!