I try my best to read at least one book by many of the acclaimed authors as I can given my line of work. However, I can’t say I have read a full book by Thomas Pynchon, a “reclusive” author who hasn’t posed for many photographers but has done The Simpsons as himself twice. I did once start Gravity’s Rainbow, but that was more than a decade ago if not two, I got maybe 20 pages in, and that was about all. It’s one of those things I figure I will someday get back to. I just have no idea when that will be or even what happened to my copy of the book.
That said, Paul Thomas Anderson adapted Pynchon’s novel Inherent VIce into a movie, something that many suggested couldn’t have been done. I used to find Anderson a bit intimidating as a filmmaker as a result of There Will Be Blood, but then I sat through Boogie Nights and Magnolia and if I can get through his work, I can probably handle Pynchon now too.
It’s 1970, and private detective Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is approached at home by ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterson) to look into some strange goings-on involving the rich older man she’s sleeping with on the side. Said man is married, and his wife and her lover are up to something, something that might involve committing Shasta’s lover to a mental hospital and then taking all of his money. Shasta doesn’t seem to be 100% clear on many details. She just thinks it seems a little screwy. Will Doc look into it? He says he will, and that’s where his problems start. Doc is something of a perpetually doped up hippie, and that puts him on the bad side of a LAPD detective nicknamed “Bigfoot” (Josh Brolin). Despite the time period, the bright colors, and the more comedic tone, this is essentially a noir story, and that means Doc can’t really trust anyone, but it also means Bigfoot seems to know more than he should and wants to know more of what Doc knows. Of course, having a relationship with a cop that is by turns hostile and friendly is another characteristic of a noir, but in this case, with the shaggy-haired Doc and the straight-arrow Bigfoot, it’s a lot deeper since Doc is basically a stand-in for the counterculture types that are very involved in this case and Bigfoot is the law-and-order type who probably loves Governor Ronald Reagan’s California, or would if it weren’t for all the dang hippies he keeps seeing.
Then not only does Shasta’s lover disappear, but so does Shasta, Doc gets framed for murder, and there’s talk of a group named the Golden Fang that may be a group of allied dentists or some kind of Asian drug syndicate. Doc gets a second, related case from a Black Panther type (Michael K. Williams), another client (Jena Malone) thinks her dead husband Coy (Owen Wilson) isn’t quite so dead, and the cops might be a bit more than just unfriendly. Doc has a lot of cases that may or may not be related all happening at the same time, but he seems to be high for most of it, so the only thing that might really stress him out is Bigfoot’s demanding more information than Doc might have. Plus, he may still be carrying a torch for Shasta.
In many ways, this is somehow a somewhat conventional film noir mystery combined with a drug comedy. Having not read the original book, I don’t know how close this is to what Pynchon wrote, but it certainly is a fun and chaotic mess. I don’t think it’s played as broadly funny–aside from Martin Short, someone I could usually take or leave, as a very funny drug-addled dentist–but there’s a lot going on here if all you like is a good noir mystery. Doc is one of the least likely detectives I’ve seen in a long time, sharing office space with a doctor of some kind by the looks of things, and generally drifting through life. He’s not a stupid man. Indeed, many of the ways he comes up with to find information are rather clever, and given the setting, he’s much better equipped at finding things out from the people in the know than the cops.
It helps a bit that Anderson found a way to use a narrator, a supporting character that only appears as part of the main narrative sporadically in the form of a woman friend of Doc and Shasta’s played by singer and musician Joanna Newsom. But really, it isn’t that hard to see why Doc has more success than Bigfoot. Doc is an easy-going guy who, so long as you don’t have a swastika tattooed to your face, isn’t overly judgmental about the people he interacts with, forging relationships with “massage parlor” girls, missing people who aren’t hiding as hard as they think they are, or various doped up friends and acquaintances. By contrast, Bigfoot sticks out like a sore thumb, a man who can’t but help look down his nose at the people he needs to interact with. Doc will put on a disguise, act polite, and just ask questions, letting people tell him what he really wants to know. Bigfoot will just kick a door down and make demands. It makes for an interesting dynamic, and it’s the real reason why a man like Doc can get a job done while snorting stuff off a stranger’s desk. This may be the most fun noir I’ve seen in quite some time as a result.
Grade: B+
0 Comments