Southland Tales
User Score
6.2 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 64 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 40 out of 64
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 64
  3. Negative: 18 out of 64

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  1. TimG.
    Jun 9, 2008
    0
    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.… Expand
  2. SarahD
    Nov 20, 2007
    1
    Bad movie, way too long. I would have left early but my bf wanted to see it through.
  3. ClintJ.
    Aug 2, 2008
    1
    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.… Expand
  4. ChristG.
    Nov 13, 2007
    1
    The only good thing about this movie is that it eventually ends.
  5. JeremyT
    Dec 20, 2007
    2
    I refused for a long time to listen to the bad press this movie was getting. After almost a year and a half of eating, i finally saw it, and realized that the movie really IS a cinematic turd. Some people went in WANTING to see art, so, like an inkblot test, they saw it. I refuse to let the movie confuse me into submission. It isn't a TOTAL waste, Lou Taylor Pucci and Mandy Moore give decent performances, and Cheri Oteri is good, but almost everything else is just garbage. Note to readers of this: Randomness is NOT a substitute for greatness.… Collapse
  6. JohnT
    Jan 3, 2008
    1
    Southland Tales is like a Philip Dick adaptation by someone who doesn't understand what's interesting about Philip Dick. It's unfortunate that the critical discussion of the film has otherwise been divided into two camps: middlebrow reviewers who "don't get it" and the sharper blades who, shockingly, embrace the film as ambitious and full of ideas despite the fact that it possesses the aesthetic sophistication of a Limp Bizkit album cover and the political cunning of that loud-mouthed libertarian kid from your junior-high civics class. Also, who knew a movie about the apocalypse could be so boring?… Expand
  7. CWhiteside
    Apr 6, 2008
    1
    Honestly, this is perhaps the most disappointing movie I have ever seen.
  8. DavidM.
    Sep 28, 2008
    0
    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.
  9. StanU
    Nov 19, 2007
    0
    A mess is what this turned out to be. I'm all for experiments and stylistic/tonal shifts but this was just too much and too much of it. Couldn't care less about the characters and the plot itself seemed like a uninteresting exercise in threading the points with no regard for the audience. I'm no hater but it's just not very good.
  10. DaveR.
    Dec 3, 2007
    4
    I'm a huge Darko fan, which is why I wanted to see this film. So I was favorably inclined, and I'm sorry to report that it didn't work for me. I appreciate that Kelly explored some deeper questions about religion and civil liberties and security without pounding the same slogans and hot-buttons that too often pass for intelligent debate. I salute his effort, but it just didn't hook me. The characters are flat and the plot is muddled and convoluted. I couldn't keep pace with what was going on, and I wasn't much interested in who lived or died. In other words, the experience was so detached that I couldn't relate. I saw it but I didn't feel it. Contrast this against, say, "Sin City" or "Pulp Fiction", which managed to cover a lot of graphic-novel-type turf (I think this is the sort of atmosphere that Kelly was trying to create), while at the same time drawing me in with charismatic characters and relationships that worked.… Expand
  11. DaneB.
    Apr 24, 2008
    0
    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.
  12. ryancarroll88
    Aug 27, 2010
    1
    why, why, why, why, why?
    Note to directors: if you're going to film whatever **** flies through your brain, at least have the common decency to make the final product less than 2 hours. That being said, it was probably the most well-acted roles I had seen by most of the big-name actors in the movie (most notably Justin Timberlake). But still, why!?

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
44 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 26
  3. Negative: 10 out of 26
  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    30
    The English term "shambolic" best describes a slow-paced, bloated and self-indulgent picture that combines science fiction, sophomoric humor and grisly violence soaked in a music-video sensibility.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    30
    Rarely has a picture been so self-consciously designed to be a culturally meaningful touchstone, and fallen so woefully short, as Southland Tales.
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  3. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    67
    Southland Tales has a mood unlike anything I've seen: dread that morphs into kitsch and then back again. It's a film that tried my patience, and one I couldn't shake off.
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