Set in Montana's Big Sky country, shot in Utah, lensed by Eric Alan Edwards (cinematographer of My Own Private Idaho)--no wonder it's hard to tell where Clay Pigeons lives, or where it's going. A Ridley Scott protégé previously at home in commercials and videos, debuting director David Dobkin aims to deliver us into the blackly comedic badlands of neo-noir, territory mined by the likes of Red Rock West and Fargo. Pigeons launches strongly, with several cruel turns of the screw. Out target-shooting, Clay Birdwell (Joaquin Phoenix) is hit with the news that his best pal knows he's been boffing his ur-slut wife (Georgina Cates) and could take Clay out on the spot, but chooses a creepier revenge--committing suicide in order to frame the guy who's cuckolded him. Naturally, Clay covers up the mess, thereby opening the film's can of very nasty worms. A slick, fast-talking cowboy (Vince Vaughn)--the funhouse-mirror-opposite of Phoenix's sweet, slow farmboy--turns up, and a string of ugly murders begins to play out. Once Vaughn's Lester Long is on the scene, spreading his psychotically giggling bonhomie, Dobkin's skin-deep riff on Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train pretty much belongs to him. The rest of the cast looks more or less like clay pigeons set up by a scattershot script: exceptions include the always-estimable Scott Wilson who transforms his caricature-prone Sheriff Mooney into a character of nuanced humanity, and Janeane Garofalo, as an urban-hip FBI agent, whose single-chick sarcasm goes down in flames when Lester unholsters those big guns of come-hither charm. John Lurie of Lounge Lizards fame contributes a distinctive score, but Elvis Presley acts as the film's patron saint in more ways than one: Clay Pigeons' sexiest, scariest wet work is choreographed to "It's Now or Never." --Kathleen Murphy
(32 votes)
2.
Lester Long Never Forgets A Friend.
He has a firm handshake, a ready smile, and some strange ideas about friendship. His name is Lester Long and when the bodies start piling up he generously decides to share the blame. Now the F.B.I. has got the whole town under observation, and Lester has put his new friend Clay over a barrel. The only way for Clay to set things straight is to beat one twisted individual at his own game of deceit and double-crossing.
(31 votes)
3.
Joaquin Phoenix is Clay, a young Montana man who is distressed over the suicide of his friend, the wife of whom Clay was having an affair with. When he befriends a charismatic serial killer (Vince Vaughn), death, while never touching him, can't seem to leave Clay alone. Janeane Garofolo does a snappy turn as an FBI agent in the darkly comic and surprising film.
(30 votes)
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