Inherent Vice 2014
I don’t remember hearing much about this movie when it came out, but it got strong reviews. It was one of the movies showing up in one of Dollar Tree’s DVD and blu-ray sales that come along every few months. Even though I usually don’t buy DVD’s, it came with a code for a HD digital copy so I bought it anyway. Then in the next wave the blu-ray showed up (which included a DVD), so I double-dipped, figuring the reviews still warranted a blind buy of another dollar.
It is mostly a neo-noir movie set in Los Angeles in 1970, but has a strong stoner influence going on, mostly in regards to the main character, “Doc” Sportello, a hippie private investigator, played by Joaquin Phoenix. By an amazing coincidence that can only happen in movies, several people come to him independently about inter-related problems involving a local real estate developer mixed up with Aryans, and a mysterious entity called The Golden Fang. Sportello isn’t really much of a detective, but he dutifully follows up on everything which gets him more and more involved. It is a typical detective story maybe, but with weirder characters. Based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, it feels like a lot is left out of the movie, even though most of it ties together in the end.
Because I didn’t really know what to expect from the movie, it took me a while to figure some things out. Like what Doc does for a living. I still don’t know why he works out of a doctor’s office. Also there is a strong sense of humor that I wasn’t really paying much attention to, though I’m not a big fan of stoner comedies. Also Doc has a couple of girlfriends that I couldn’t necessarily tell apart and wasn’t sure of their roles. So I was confused by a lot of the movie, but not necessarily because of the intricate plot, but because it wasn’t told that well. Pynchon’s novels are famously inaccessible, so maybe that is intentional. I don’t mind trying to catch up though and the performances are good, post-Manson L.A. makes a great setting, and the story ends up working.
The blu-ray extras are pretty limited, just trailers that set up the characters or story. Though they show some things not in the movie, they don’t add much.
Written: 26 Jan 2020
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital