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Southland Tales
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MPAA RATING: R for language, violence, sexual material and some drug content
Starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Bai Ling, Cheri Oteri, and Miranda Richardson
The city stands on the brink of social, economic, and environmental disaster. Southland Tales is an epic story set over the course of three days that culminate in a massive 4th of July celebration. A large ensemble cast of characters includes Boxer Santaros, an action star stricken with amnesia; Krysta Now, an adult-film star developing her own reality-television project; and Roland Taverner, a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy. (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
| GENRE(S): | Comedy | Drama | Sci-fi |
| WRITTEN BY: | Richard Kelly |
| DIRECTED BY: | Richard Kelly |
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: March 18, 2008 Theatrical: November 14, 2007 |
| RUNNING TIME: | 144 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: | Germany / USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
David M. gave it a0:
In with a bullet to the top of my Top10 Worst Films of all time, Eeeegad...how Kelly managed to get one dime to fund this sucker is beyond belief? Amazing thing, hype.
Clint J. gave it a1:
Wow. can I have those minutes back to my life? Big words have been used to prop this "film" up but those are by people who feel as though if they dont understand the film they are not sophisticated enough or enlightened enough. The fact is I you like drugs and are on them this film is for you. If you only have 2 hours of free time because you work hard and are not currently taking prescription mecds or doing drugs--leave it alone and go watch pulp fiction again.
Bart C. gave it a9:
Richard Kelly is good at what he does hands down. He is easily climbing to the top when it comes to young and unique directors. Southland Tales is no exception. It is hard to view this film once and completely understand the choices Kelly made. The whole film is clearly not meant to be taken seriously or to have a plot that needs to be analyzed. Kelly knows what he is doing and is doing it for a reason or a higher meaning. Most underrated film of the last decade.
Tim G. gave it a0:
What. The. Hell. I'm going to be honest, I only watched the first hour, so if this film exploded into a mass of coherent plot and storyline after this point, then I apologise. But I had to turn it off because I was getting genuinely angry with it. The film starts with some sort of nuclear attack seen through a camcorder at a garden party, and I thought then that the film could be great - just my thing, but I was so wrong. The next thing we know, we're in the not so distant future, but a future that looks like the year 3000. There didn't seem to be a reason for that. Characters appeared randomly without explanation, The Rock is apparently an actor who needs to drive around with some cop, while his porn star girlfriend (Sarah M-G) rambles about some premonition for the future. Why did Rock need to drive around with him? Who knows, because it wasn't deemed important enough to explain. Was the country in a state of nuclear war? Again, no idea, because an hour in all we'd seen was one explosion in the first minute. The only hint that they might have been at war was all the nice shiny metal things, and fancy computers. I was left with no idea who any of the characters were, what they were doing, why they were doing it, or how any of them had anything to do with a nuclear war. My assumption was that Justin Timberlake was shoved in as a narraror because the story line was so weak that without him him it would have been nonsense. Unfortunately his part involved talking nonsense. I want my hour back.
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Some people are too rigid, too mainstream, and too unimaginative. These people are the ones who gave a bad rating to this film. I've never watched a movie in which I actually enjoyed not knowing what the heck was going on, being completely lost in the plethora of non-nonsensical plot lines. The end clarified some things, and caused other things to become even more convoluted, which was great. I loved all the cameos in this movie and the Rock and Stifler were amazing.
Dane B. gave it a0:
How is the average a 6.3. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I don't care what type of point it was trying to get across, it failed horribly.
Seth C. gave it a0:
What happens when pop culture collapses in upon itself. A mess of a film that pretends to not be a mess by calling itself "surreal". I'm sorry Mr. Kelly, but to be surreal you'd need to know how to make a surreal film. Overwrought expositional dialogue kills this movie. Learn how to show rather than tell. That is the crux of surreal film-making 101 and a point that was missed by this filmmaker. There will be those who claim that the point of this film is to transcend genre definition and there will be those who call Kelly on his bullsh.t. I hope most people will be able to fall into the latter category.

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