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Why so much hype?

hyped garbage

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This opens like in a film noir, with a narrator in his last moments musing on who he really is, the house around him is on fire and he's playing the trumpet. We swoop into him to find where it all went awry and he lost himself.Promising for a while, so long as we have no safe footing in solid reality and instead free fall through selves, acquiring narrative fabrics in our fall through stories. We see a drug addict, tattooed and blitzed out of his mind. A police informant. A trumpet player. An unhappy man who comes back to the same seedy apartment.I don't mind that we have the snappy cadence of Snatch or Goodfellas here and there and quirky bad guys. This really could have been something if we were left to soak up edges of shifting self and story - hallucinated by the druggie? remembered? an informant's remorse? - as we made our way to a remote cabin for a drug deal that may have been orchestrated as part of one or more of these lives.They didn't allow us to float here. Eventually it becomes like Memento, where after a few surprises we settle on a real story, we get a flashback that explains. It becomes mechanical, a case of coming up with what happened, so when in the end, it tries to wonder about who really is this man, and what of all this was true, it comes across as an unimaginative guy musing about the wonders of imagination. The whole point is that even the formerly happy life that was snatched from him should float like all the others, perhaps a self that he comes back to to make his way through the rest. Lynch would know just how, Ruiz.A more imaginative mind here would have also made use of Kilmer's presence as formerly happy guy who has bottomed out and now inhabits a limbo where acting selves struggle within anxious stories to get out of them. But that would require the same untethered shifting.Noir Meter: 2/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Post

Have you ever thought about being someone else? Just leaving behind everything you know and diving headfirst into a new name with new friends and new interests? Would that really erase who you were before? The story begins with several drug users in the midst of a binge. The narrator, "Danny Parker" (played by Val Kilmer) is also the main character. The drug that he and his companions are and have been consuming for several days is methamphetamine. "Danny" (Kilmer) then gives a brief editorial describing the history of methamphetamine, from its initial invention to the changing profile of the user over the years from kamikaze pilots to housewives to truck drivers and motorcycle gangs. We are then returned to the drug den where one of the users, known as Cujo (played by Adam Goldberg) screams to the entire room that their supply has run out. "Danny" and another addict "Jimmy the Finn" (played by Peter Sarsgaard) leave to buy more from a user and dealer that Jimmy is acquainted with. After "Danny" has returned with the drugs and the binge runs its course, he informs on the dealer to officers Gus Morgan (played by Doug Hutchison) and Al Garcetti (played by Anthony LaPaglia). His dealings with law enforcement are a secret he keeps from his fellow users. Once he's alone and in his own apartment, however, we are shown yet another secret which is kept not only from those he injects methamphetamine with, but also the police he informs to. He sheds his jewelry, washes out the Mohawk he regularly sports, and then states to the empty room that his name is Tom Van Allen and that he's a trumpet player.This is an amazing movie. Kilmer manages to perfectly portray a loving husband and trumpet player and then seamlessly transform into a derelict drug abuser. LaPaglia and Hutchison, as characters whose true nature and motives are not known at first, put forth performances that are almost as compelling, if not equally so. Deborah Kara Unger as the one character that Kilmer bears his soul to brings an entirely different dimension and resolution to the story. By this point, it should be obvious that this film isn't for everyone. Nonetheless, I highly recommend it.

The drug world is a crazy one: a world of strait and dirty, bullets and blood shed, secrecy and surveillance, and sometimes life or death. If you were one of the few people to follow David Simon's the Wire on Cable TV, you'll get the idea completely. The Saltan Sea, though occasionally flirting close too close to the line of staged plotting, feels surprisingly convincing, and down to earth. Though I wouldn't call it a super smart motion picture, it does have a brain, with brain cells that fire off signals to progress the story in a manner that is engaging.Tom Van Allen and his lovely wife were on holiday by the Salton Sea, when one night a couple of guys in masks shot her dead in the hotel lobby (along with the clerk). since then Tom, has taken up a new identity as a street punk. Having gotten himself arrested (deliberately) he has been doing buy and bust for the cops. Each bust gets progressively bigger, and his plan is ultimately to bust the one who killed his wife, something bigger and more ironic than the audience could anticipate.First shots can be very important sometimes (I'm sure many of you have a favourite example). The Salton Sea opens on a man sitting on the floor of a room which is burning all around him, while he casually plays the trumpet. Next, we hear his narrative voice, "Who am I.......I'll let you decide" before the story flashes back quite a ways. If this is not enough to get you into the story (even the slightest bit), I dunno what is.The Salton Sea does its job well. It is still shy of greatness, but I'd say it is worth a peak.

I've watched a number of Val Kilmer movies over the years and this is by far Val's best performance. While Val has always been more of a supporting actor, he really shines as the main character Danny Parker/Tom Van Allen in The Salton Sea. The plot is great and the acting is solid all around. The serious dramatic nature works well with the splash of dark humor throughout the film. It's sad to see The Salton Sea not get the notoriety it deserves. Coming from someone who has seen A LOT of movies, this is in my top 50 for sure. Val really shows he's more than the hunk from Top Gun, the crazed college kid from Real Genius, and even the gambling junkie/pro thief from Heat. Val outdoes even his performance as Jim Morrison in The Doors(1991).So, give this film a look and let yourself slip into the underground life of the perpetual night party. And get a taste of the life of Danny Parker. A tweaker with nothing to lose and a life he'll never get back.