Oh Paul Thomas Anderson! It’s getting harder to believe that you were the auteur behind that masterpiece of yours, Boogie Nights. In 2007 you came close with the brilliant There Will Be Blood. At least you’ve always been interesting. Even The Master had that “processing” session that Lancaster Dodd administered on Freddie Quell. Now you’ve gone and released Inherent Vice, a happily incoherent, meandering head trip in the life of an LA private eye.
Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is that laid back private investigator. Let’s just say he loses focus pretty easily. He’s visited by his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) who wants him to investigate a paranoid sounding plot against her current boyfriend, real-estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts). Apparently his wife is trying to have him committed to a mental institution. But that’s really only the beginning. Along the way Doc meets a overzealous LAPD detective (Josh Brolin) that injects a spark of life amongst all the sleepy “far out man” attitudes. As Doc’s strange case becomes stranger, the narrative grows foggy. The point becomes less and less clear. That, my dear reader, IS the point. The cast list balloons to include speaking parts for over 25 actors I think. Frankly I lost count. These people intersect, reconnect and, in one particularly indelible scene, have sex. Shasta seemingly leaves the story at one juncture, but her return is, shall we say, (ahem) memorable?
Inherent Vice is an aimless trudge through the fog of a marijuana haze. That’s to be expected with a movie adapted from a novel by Thomas Pynchon. Nobody has ever turned a Pynchon book into a movie before. I mean Gravity’s Rainbow is kind of famous for being un-adaptable, So I’ll give Anderson credit for trying. Some will champion its mystifying merits. Translation: Inherent Vice is an acquired taste. One’s enjoyment will partially rest on how much you value a plot in a 2 ½ hour film. The atmosphere is so drugged out you could almost get high by association. I couldn’t find much to enjoy in these shenanigans. And that’s all this is. A bunch of half baked gags. Pun intended. Any story that weaves in characters named Puck Beaverton, Japonica Fenway and Bigfoot Bjornsen obviously isn’t meant to taken seriously. Add a cultural 1970s LA milieu which finds room for the Aryan Brotherhood, the Manson family murders, an Asian massage parlor and something called Golden Fang which could be a secretive Chinese syndicate or simply an alliance of wealthy dentists. That tongue in cheek attitude is good for a few scattered laughs I suppose. Inherent Vice is an “experience” to be sure, but I’ll pass on taking a second hit.
12-18-14
Fast Film Reviews 
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