Alan Smithee Esq. There are many 'man looks for wife's killer' movies, lots of them. This is an exceptional one. A strong. deep and engrossing mystery. This one will keep you hooked with eccentric characters and a fantastic plot. The plot circles around drugs but doesn't glorify them nor does it judge those that indulge. Val Kilmer gives an amazing performance as a tortured soul of man who seemingly lost his life and his identity when he lost his wife.

chaos-rampant This opens like in a film noir, with a narrator in his last moments musing on who he really is, the house around him is on fire and he's playing the trumpet. We swoop into him to find where it all went awry and he lost himself.Promising for a while, so long as we have no safe footing in solid reality and instead free fall through selves, acquiring narrative fabrics in our fall through stories. We see a drug addict, tattooed and blitzed out of his mind. A police informant. A trumpet player. An unhappy man who comes back to the same seedy apartment.I don't mind that we have the snappy cadence of Snatch or Goodfellas here and there and quirky bad guys. This really could have been something if we were left to soak up edges of shifting self and story - hallucinated by the druggie? remembered? an informant's remorse? - as we made our way to a remote cabin for a drug deal that may have been orchestrated as part of one or more of these lives.They didn't allow us to float here. Eventually it becomes like Memento, where after a few surprises we settle on a real story, we get a flashback that explains. It becomes mechanical, a case of coming up with what happened, so when in the end, it tries to wonder about who really is this man, and what of all this was true, it comes across as an unimaginative guy musing about the wonders of imagination. The whole point is that even the formerly happy life that was snatched from him should float like all the others, perhaps a self that he comes back to to make his way through the rest. Lynch would know just how, Ruiz.A more imaginative mind here would have also made use of Kilmer's presence as formerly happy guy who has bottomed out and now inhabits a limbo where acting selves struggle within anxious stories to get out of them. But that would require the same untethered shifting.Noir Meter: 2/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Post

John Raymond Peterson Is Val Kilmer out to set a record? He's got six productions set for 2012 release, on top of his list of 76 acting credits. Salton Sea is in my opinion his last feature film worth watching. He's played second fiddle in several since then and had lead roles in mediocre productions but the potential many moviegoers had seen in him have sort of faded away and I hope he'll do something worthwhile soon but I'm not holding my breath. Has his mark as an actor fans want to see vanished with his best behind him? Red Planet, The Saint, Tombstone, Thunderheart, The Doors, all good movies but a fraction of what he's done. The Salton Sea may be Kilmer's best. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, really? Enough about him; the movie is a good crime drama and has a supporting cast to match.I had to dig back many years to find this movie. It's a dark movie but powerful nonetheless. Vincent D'Onofrio's performance is outstanding, though brief. There's suspense and action to keep a die-hard fan of the genre glued to the seat. The rating by users has consistently been good at the various sources I like to refer to, but not so much from the critics. I can't think of any dark movie scoring well with critics; they must have sensibilities beyond that of the average moviegoer.

Bob_the_Hobo I've been looking up Kilmer's work before he hit rock-bottom and the straight to video market. So far The Salton Sea tops the list.Kilmer plays a burned-out junkie who has at least one other identity. He gets in trouble with psychotic drug dealer Pooh-Bear (Vincent D'Onofrio), while trying to level his position with cops Garcetti (Anthony LaPaglia) and Morgan (Doug Hutchison) and being haunted by the death of his wife.A very, very good drug drama. The plot is involving and always interesting, the characters are utterly original and engrossing. The cinematography draws you in and the direction overall is very well done. Kilmer and D'Onofrio are just amazing. They steal each scene they're in and show why they're two of the best in the business. Doug Hutchison as well. Definitely recommend this one.