“Could you not poke
the body with a stick, please?”
Clay Pigeons
The intent
of this article isn’t to convince you that you’ve somehow missed the greatest
overlooked film of all time. Rather, I simply hope to bring a couple more
humans to the fold of Clay Pigeons. A
film unfairly and largely ignored, surely because of the amount of “big indie
films” that came out the same year (1998) – Rushmore
and The Big Lebowski being the two
taking the most publicity.
Clay Pigeons is a little gem that packs
more punch, unpredictability and macabre humor into its brisk running time then
near anything else from the late 90s in North America. This of course, excludes
Fargo, the film most often compared
to David Dobkin’s only actual good film to this day (although moments of Old School are quite humorous). Simply
calling Clay Pigeons a Fargo rip-off is a gross disservice to both films, as they are different
creatures altogether.
Clay
Pigeons offers up a young (but routinely excellent) Joaquin Phoenix, a
reliably hilarious Janeane Garofalo (rumored to have taken the role solely
because she felt the violence against women in the film needed a strong female
character to play against), an atypically unpredictable, sultry, slyly comical and
genuinely funny Vince Vaughn and a score from John Lurie of the Lounge Lizards
and Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law.
The film
begins with a seemingly innocuous afternoon of beer consumption and subsequent
destruction of said beer bottles with handguns. What unfolds in those opening
five minutes sets us down an increasingly bizarre path of accidents and cover
ups leading to mountains more of both.
Phoenix’ main character is refreshing because he very much functions in the
grey. He is certainly not a good man, but he’s also not necessarily a horrible
human - perhaps a product of his environment more than himself, although one
shouldn’t be quick to label him as intelligent.
Clay Pigeons plays best for those
looking for a nasty little film that has plenty of twists and turns, vicious
black humor and slightly juvenile characterizations on the periphery. Moment to
moment, things change so quickly (sometimes drastically) that one must simply
give in to the ride they have boarded. Simply delight in the decadence and
melodramatic musings offered up by the uber-entertaining,
tough-as-nails/sweet-as-pie, overlooked little gem that is this film.
- Will
Morris, House Manager, Sie Film Center
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