Southland Tales

"This is how the world ends, not with a whimper,but with a bang" says the films narrator Justin Timberlake.

The year is 2008 and the world is a mess. Our narrator for this tale is JT playing a Iraq war vet who is sitting in a big chair with a big gun guarding something called Fluid Karma. This Fluid Karma is a perpetual motion wave machine that is the new power for the world since oil has become rare and expensive. The United States has seen better times. Texas has suffered a nuke and the country has become a police state. A Marxist underground based on the West Coast is determined to bring down the federal government through violent revolution. In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer Santaros is an actor famous for his role in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex. And Roland Taverner is an L.A. police officer whose identity has mysteriously split in two and he struggles to track down his other half.
The ever so seeming over the top performances by the cast are actually good. For all the mystery, action and intrigue, Southland Tales keeps you at such a far distance that the movie feels soulless, unlike the connection Richard Kelly's last movie 'Donnie Darko' had.
Southland Tales still is very entertaining but very ambitious and messy. C- Enjoy, but don't say I didn't warn you. ~Caleb