Inherent Vice (2014) [Blu-ray]
Crime | Drama | Mystery

From Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon, it's the tail end of the psychedelic '60s and paranoia is running the day from the desert to the sea of sunny Southern California. With a cast of characters that includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, the FBI, LAPD detective, a tenor sax player working undercover, a group of Beverly Hills dentists and a mysterious entity called The Golden Fang, everything's gone from "groovy" to "where you at, man?" in what seems like a matter of moments. So when private eye Doc Sportello's ex-old lady Shasta Fay shows up at his door with a story about her current Billionaire land-developer boyfriend and his wife and her boyfriend... well it all starts to get a little peculiar after that. Maybe you'll just want to see the movie?

Storyline: During the psychedelic 60s and 70s Larry "Doc" Sportello is surprised by his former girlfriend and her plot for her billionaire boyfriend, his wife, and her boyfriend. A plan for kidnapping gets shaken up by the oddball characters entangled in this groovy kidnapping romp based upon the novel by Thomas Pynchon. Written by bignicknasty97

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, April 19, 2015 -- Inherent Vice teases viewers with an informal, burnt out indifference but it might just be writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's least accessible film to date. And he knows it. Relishes it. Based on the 2007 novel of the same name by wildly elusive author Thomas Pynchon, the subversively funky, drug-addled counter-noir makes no demands yet demands everything. Your full attention above all, much as it seems that's the last thing it's asking for. It rambles, mumbles, wobbles, sighs, blows smoke, narrates hypnotically then sits idly by, and above all refuses to give chase. It doesn't care if it loses you. Confounds you. Overwhelms. Underwhelms. It runs away and races back, whispers something incoherent in your ear, mutters a joke, nabs a laugh, then lurches forward again with an inebriated, at-times infuriating, at-times mesmerizing cadence. Cases accumulate. Characters pile up. Motives criss-cross, double-cross and triple-cross three times over. You'll almost certainly need to commit to more than one viewing, if only to better track what the hell is going on. And still Anderson presses the advantage, challenging, cultivating, ducking and weaving, inviting his audience in; once, twice, again and again, spinning them in circles before asking 'em to walk a straight line. You thought The Master was divisive? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

"Was it possible that at every gathering, concert, peace rally, love-in, be-in, freak-in, here up north, back east, where ever, some dark crews had been busy all along reclaiming the music, the resistance to power, the sexual desire from epic to everyday? All they could sweep up for the ancient forces of greed and fear? Gee he thought, I don't know."

South Beach, California. 1970. When private eye Doc Sportello's (Joaquin Phoenix) ex-old lady, Shasta (Katherine Waterston), suddenly shows up with a story about her current billionaire land developer boyfriend (whom she just happens to be in love with) and a plot by his wife and her boyfriend to kidnap that billionaire and throw him in a loony bin... well, easy for her to say. It's the tail end of the psychedelic '60s, paranoia is running the day, and Doc knows that "love" is another one of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," that's being way too overused, except this one usually leads to trouble. With a cast of characters that includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, LAPD Detectives, a tenor sax player working undercover, and a mysterious entity known as The Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists, the film -- the first feature adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel -- is part surf noir, part psychedelic romp, all Pynchon.

Phoenix and Waterson are flanked by a lineup of scene-hogging A-listers and familiar character actors, each one -- even those who only show up for a glorified cameo -- in on one tightly guarded joke or another that's just out of reach. Josh Brolin. ("I hope this won't be another one of those unabridged paranoid hippie monologues I seem obliged to sit through.") Benicio del Toro. ("We got plenty of crime on the high seas.") Owen Wilson. ("Staying with a band I used to play for, The Boards, but none of them know it's me. Even when I was alive they didn't know it was me.") Martin Short. ("Why, you're another one of those hippie dope fiends, aren't ya? Here for a little perking up?") Reese Witherspoon. ("You, me, a tape machine, maybe another DDA to witness it?") Michael K. Williams. ("See, outside of Glen, I ain't never liked the company of Nazis.") Jena Malone. ("Everyone helpfully pointed out how the heroin was actually coming through my breast milk, but who could afford formula, ya know?") Maya Rudolph. (Doc, I love your afro!") Michelle Anne Sinclair. ("You gonna keep holding to that tank or you gonna marry it?")

The '70s subculture dialogue and pinched South Cali slang is as deceptively loose and fluid as the performances. Phoenix is in fine, spaced-out form, shedding The Master's brutally gullible Freddie Quell, summoning bits of Buffalo Soldiers' Ray Elwood, and using glazed eyes, a slack mouth and a childlike curiosity to conceal the surprisingly sharp private detective beneath the act. This layering is more than crucial. It's strangely compelling, if only because the desire to know what makes Doc tick becomes more and more nagging as he follows the clues to their not so inevitable conclusion. Never mind the narration. Never mind the suggestion that Shasta is central. (Though Waterson is just as terrific.) If Phoenix buckles or falls, the whole movie comes crashing down; a disaster avoided with the help of the aforementioned revolving door supporting cast. All color and quirk, Brolin, del Toro, Wilson, and company give Phoenix (and Waterson) ample room to work and enough leeway to make it all look effortless.

Inherent Vice doesn't wrap up neatly, or much at all, and any hope that it will should be abandoned long before tailing Doc to his first interview, much less his last. If that doesn't sit well with you, might as well find another movie to fill your Friday night slot. The story sprawls and sprawls, outward and beyond, and never contracts, to the point that what already feels free-wheeling and out of control begins to feel more so. It isn't Anderson's failing, though, or even Pynchon's. It isn't a missed opportunity at all. Like his previous films, Anderson is at his best when things threaten to slip through his fingers, and it's in his dealings with chaos, ambiguity and the madcap mundane that Inherent Vice comes together in ways all but ordained. It couldn't wrap up in any other fashion without betraying everything Anderson and Pynchon are driving at. The more Doc pursues the truth, the larger and more complex his case becomes. Pynchon's PI shoulders the burden of the entire hippie movement; dabbling in ideals and passions, rebelling in a haze of smoke, free love and rock-n-roll, and realizing -- often much too late -- that those in power mean to stay in power, that corruption is a means and an end for the sober, and that resistance is a dying man's game.

There are moments when style dominates substance -- not entirely uncharacteristic of Anderson, though usually not to this degree -- and others when it seems Anderson isn't concerned with making a coherent movie as much as he is capturing Pynchon's affection for unfilmable incoherence. (Reports from the set and interviews with cast members, while positive in nature, confirm as much.) Patience is required, multiple viewings are a must, and a certain level of trust in the director goes a long way. Inherent Vice isn't an easy film to fall for, much less enjoy, and offers nothing but postmodernistic frustration to anyone who isn't paying close attention at all times. And even if you follow everything, even if you "get it" right away or eventually, you won't necessarily like it. Anderson isn't gunning for your approval. He's working to evoke and provoke, and maybe, maybe do something more. If, that is, you're dogged enough to unravel the mystery beneath the mystery; the one that ties Inherent Vice to Pynchon than anything else.

Paul Thomas Anderson has never been a filmmaker of the people, but Inherent Vice will even divide the faithful Anderson fold. Savoring all it has to offer requires multiple viewings (if only to be rid of the expectations that tend to taint the first viewing), a keen eye, and patience, patience, patience. There's richness here, as well as a psychedelic verve that embraces the genre and subverts it, captures Pynchon without being beholden to him, and carves out another unique corner of the Anderson canon. Warner's Blu-ray is excellent too, so long as you aren't hoping for any special features of substance. There aren't any. What you will find is a terrific AV presentation; one that makes those multiple viewings that much easier to absorb.

[CSW] -2.2- Although I think I understand what the film was shooting for it missed its mark terribly. It ended up being charmless, aimless, pointless, and endless and by endless I mean at least an hour too long. But even a hard edit couldn't have made this remotely coherent or made the characters people that you could really care about or even get you to actually care about what was at stake throughout the movie. Although somewhat interesting at times, it was not only hard to follow but... boring.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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