CLAY PIGEONS

1998 -- R -- 104 mins

Directed by David Dobkin. Written by Matthew L. Healy

Joaquin Phoenix: Clay Birdwell

Vince Vaughn: Lester Long

Janeane Garofalo: Agent Dale Shelby

Scott Wilson: Sheriff Mooney

Georgina Cates: Amanda

Gregory Sporleder: Earl

Phil Morris: Agent Reynard

Vince Vieluf: Deputy Barney

"Barney, could you not poke the body with a stick, please."

PLOT SYNOPSIS:

Clay is a young man in a small town who has an affair with the wife of his best friend. His friend discovers this, and proceeds to kill himself in front of Clay, in order to frame Clay for the death. Clay covers up his involvement in the death, feeling guilt ridden and nervous. The mistress, Amanda, is less than crushed by the death of her hubby and demands they carry on their sexual adventures. Clay will have none of it, however, but finds that Amanda won't let him alone...even going so far as to murder a local waitress Clay sleeps with. Another body, another coverup. During this time, Clay meets a jovial trucker passing through named Lester Long. Clay and Lester go fishing at a nearby lake, and proceed to hook a corpse of a young woman. And soon after, a fourth body is discovered...this time it's Amanda, who was murdered by Lester after they slept together. The brutality of the murder brings a pair of crack FBI agents to town, who quickly piece together that Clay is connected with the bodies found, not to mention the missing waitress. 

JANEANE'S CHARACTER:

Unlike Janeane's role in Cop Land, Clay Pigeons actually gives her a chance to be a major part of the action. As Dale Shelby, she investigates, questions and forms theories as to who's committing the crimes. Her casting as an FBI agent may seem like an odd one at first, but the role is actually perfectly suited for the actress. Dale is a highly intelligent, independent woman who has a razor sharp wit. The interrogation of Phoenix scene especially shows Shelby's professional and toughness. Yet the script still gives her a lot of opportunities to be funny, and she certainly makes the most of them, such as her run in with Vaughn in a bar, and her scene alone in the hotel room.

In fact, her only scene with Vaughn is the highlight for her character. She laughs off Lester's feeble attempts to hit on her, but then lets her guard down and truly does start to display interest him. However, he blows her off when his date shows up, leaving Shelby feeling rather disappointed, with him and herself. 

**1/2

Clay Pigeons is another of those twisted black comedies/thrillers where all kinds of nasty things happen that are supposed to make us laugh and wince at the same time, like Peter Berg's wildly entertaining Very Bad Things. Pigeons is unable to get it completely right, but still succeeds in keeping the audience entertained. Matthew L. Healy's script gives us plenty of intriguing twists and turns right from the very first scene, and Dobkin's direction moves at a great pace and has moments of inspired filmmaking. If anything, Dobkin tries too hard to be bleakly witty, with a hell of a lot of music throughout the film, and used in the darker moments; when Lester slaughters Amanda, Elvis plays on the soundtrack. But the music is good and well selected. The movie has several injokes and references that are funny, in a self-indulgent kind of way. The most obvious one is that Shelby is watching Alien on videotape, which is the famed project of Clay Pigeons producer Ridley Scott. Look closely next to the TV in Shelby's room and you'll see copies of True Romance and Swingers. Romance was the 1993 effort of executive producer Tony Scott, and Swingers, was of course, Vince Vaughn's breakout role. In one dinner scene, the radio is playing the country-toned song "Moody River". This song was used over the end credits of Tony's underrated action fest The Last Boy Scout.

The small town characters boarder on the stereotypes, especially with the slutty, sex-crazed Amanda and the moronic deputy, unsubtly called Barney. Maybe if all the characters had been played totally straight the jokes would have been more effective. There are pretty sizeable holes in logic in Clay Pigeons, and the final result is more than a little unbelievable. Phoenix is okay in the lead, though he sometimes seems to be sleep walking through scenes. Everyone else in the film seems to be in on the humorous black edge, yet Phoenix plays it too real. Vaughn's performance is a matter of taste as he gets the broadest part in the film. Lester is clearly insane and vicious, yet he comes across as a harmless goofball at times. The actor plays more of a parody than any actual person, but if the audience buys into it, they'll enjoy him. Wilson manages to keep his character of the sheriff away from clichés with a warm and likeable performance, and it's him that actually gets the movies closing punchline twist. I also really liked Phil Morris as Shelby's partner. Morris only has 8 lines (his silence is a running joke), yet the actor makes the audience believe he's incredibly intelligent, taking everything in and doesn't feel the need to talk until he has something to say.

"Enter Garofalo, and, finally, something entertaining starts happening, though it's not entertaining enough to save the whole film. Garofalo's general persona as an actress and stand-up comic is that of someone who's endlessly cursed by her aggressively well-read intellect, so she doesn't seem to be grandstanding as much as the other actors while dealing with the small-town cops."--Paul Tatara, CNN

"Janeane Garofalo stands there and belts out zingers and is a delight."--Roger Ebert

"Oh, Janeane, Janeane, Janeane...why must you appear in such cruddy movies?"--Weeklywire.com

VIDCAPS  (scanned by me, Earl)

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