Writer-director Richard Kelly’s follow-up to his cult classic Donnie Darko is such a massive undertaking with all the ideas he wants to deal with that it unfortunately collapses under the weight of its aspirations. It’s a noble effort, but by attempting to tackle so many subjects, the film fails to get a grip on any of them. Kelly describes Southland Tales as “30 percent comedy, 30 percent musical, 30 percent thriller, and 10 percent science fiction,” but ultimately it is a satire that looks at the effects Hollywood, the War on Terror, and technology have on human beings individually and as a society.
The film opens with a nuclear attack happening in two Texas suburban neighborhoods on the 4th of July, 2005. Three years later, America is under virtual martial law as the Patriot Act has been turbocharged and the organization USIDent has taken control of everything. People are under constant surveillance in the streets and on the Internet. The world is almost out of oil, but a German company has created an energy device that is perpetually powered by the ocean.
The rest of the story is set in Los Angeles with a wide array of characters. Private Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) used to serve in Iraq and now patrols the California coastline manning a very large gun. He is addicted to a strong psychotropic drug called Fluid Karma. Action hero Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) is married to Madeline Frost (Mandy Moore), whose father is a senator running for President, but when we first meet him, he is suffering from amnesia and living with his girlfriend, porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Together they have developed a screenplay for Santaros while she hosts a reality/current events discussion show joined by her female co-stars. Zora Carmichaels (Cheri Oteri) leads a small band of Marxist revolutionaries who are attempting to overthrow the government. Roland and Ronald Taverner (Seann William Scott) are twin brothers on opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a police officer and former Iraq War soldier who served with Abilene, the other a revolutionary in with Carmichaels. These characters are all unbelievably tied together by the film’s end.
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