Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn, Janeane Garofalo, Georgina Cates
Director: David Dobkin
Producers: Ridley Scott, Chris Zarpas
Screenplay: Matt Healy
Cinematography: Eric Edwards
Music: John Lurie
U.S. Distributor: Polygram
For a while, Clay Pigeons looks like it's going to be a humdinger of a mystery/thriller, the kind of thing that Hitchcock or John Dahl (Red Rock West, Rounders) would be proud of. Then it all falls apart. This is one of those motion pictures where the director (David Dobkin, in his feature debut) and the writer (Matt Healy) are so concerned about developing a clever, serpentine plot that they forget that there has to be a credible ending. So, what starts out as a top-notch suspense film eventually fizzles. The final half-hour contains enough contrivances and holes to challenge even the most generous movie-goer's suspension of disbelief.
Things start off badly for Clay Bidwell (Joaquin Phoenix). He has a good life in the small town of Mercer, Montana until he goes out shooting with his best buddy, Earl (Gregory Sporleder). Clay has been having an affair with Amanda (Georgina Cates), his friend's wife, and, as a form of revenge, Earl commits suicide and frames Clay for murder. Unable to get any help from Amanda, Clay is forced to dispose of Earl's body. But the cover-up is not perfect, and it leads to another death and another corpse. Meanwhile, a drifter by the name of Lester Long (Vince Vaughn) wanders into town, and he and Clay bond over a few beers and a game or two of pool. Soon, they're on a fishing trip together, and, instead of catching the big one, they find a plastic-wrapped body. Soon, the FBI, led by the cynical agent Dale Shelby (Janeane Garofalo), are in town, looking at Clay as a possible serial killer.
Clay Pigeons is a disappointment. Dobkin has a lot of good elements at his disposal, but he can't pull them all together in the end, and there's nothing less satisfying that a thriller that concludes with a whimper. Clay's travails are built up with equal parts tension and black comedy. (At one point, the sheriff begs him, "Promise me you'll stop finding dead people.") And some of the traps that ensnare Clay are devilishly clever. Joaquin Phoenix (who, along with co-star Vince Vaughn, was in the recent Return to Paradise) does a solid job of portraying a desperate young man who, through almost no doing of his own, suddenly finds himself at the center of a complex web of deceit. Vaughn, for his part, is okay as the charming, mysterious Lester. And Janeane Garofalo, despite being underused (she doesn't make her first appearance until the film is half over), brings her trademark sharp, self-deprecating wit to the role. Georgina Cates (An Awfully Big Adventure) is arguably the real standout. She plays the femme fatale with relish – sort of a psychotic Blanche DuBois.
Clay Pigeons is developed like a house of cards, with each new labyrinthine plot twist making the entire structure more unstable. Barring a brilliant ending, which this film does not possess, it's inevitable that everything must come tumbling down. Those who don't mind the increasingly-preposterous trajectory along which Clay Pigeons is propelled will probably enjoy this movie, if only to guess at what comes next. Personally, I prefer my thrillers to rely on solid character development and an intelligent script. Clay Pigeons comes up short in both areas. As for the final scene, the word "anticlimax" comes to mind. Not to mention "lame." This movie was winged soon after it got off the ground.
© 1998 James Berardinelli