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A Lions Gate release. Written by James Cox, Captain Mauzner, D. Loriston Scott, James Cox, Todd Samovitz; directed by James Cox; starring Val Kilmer, Josh Lucas, Kate Bosworth and Tim Blake Nelson. Released to DVD on February 17, 2004.  There is a common misconception among the movie-going public that the word 'independent' is synonymous with the word 'good'. I found myself engaged in this conversation recently with someone who asked me, "Then why are the majority of indie films that I see really well made?" "Because they don't release the bad ones," I replied. But the truth of the matter is that, on occasion, they do release some bad independent films. Wonderland, for example. On the surface, Wonderland seems to be the shining example of what an indie film should be: a semi-gritty examination of the underbelly of Americana featuring a plethora of big names (Val Kilmer, Lisa Kudrow, Josh Lucas and Kate Bosworth among many others) playing interesting and captivatingly flawed characters. However, after a mere fifteen minutes of Wonderland, it becomes surprisingly hard to ignore that the film lacked any sort of focus or direction. Kilmer stars in Wonderland as famed '70's porn-star John Holmes. Holmes is best known for his 14-inch penis (Mark Wahlberg played a slightly fictionalized version of Holmes in director Paul Thomas Anderson's far superior film, Boogie Nights). Holmes is also known for his involvement in one of southern California's most bloody mass killings, known best as The Wonderland Murder Case. Wonderland is the story of what led up to the murders and how Holmes was involved. Sort of. Told in a he-said-she-said style, the audience is first introduced to one of the night's two survivors, the hirsute and heroin-addicted David Lind (Dylan McDermott), speaking to two detectives (Franky G and Ted Levine). Lind paints a savage picture of Holmes' involvement in the case, stating that Holmes was the mastermind of both the murders and the robbery that led up the murders.  Based upon this information, the detectives pick up Holmes and ask him about his involvement. Holmes' version of the events is quite different, as he portrays himself as a victim throughout the sordid tale. Holmes was the unwitting errand boy who was coerced and forced into several menial tasks for the real criminals in return for drugs. There is then a third and much shorter version of the events of Wonderland murders told by Holmes' wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), although where Sharon gets this information is as suspect as everything else in the film because she is visible on-screen telling Holmes she doesn't want to know anything about his criminal activities. And while Richard Rorty might like director James Cox' rejection of absolute truth, I found the lack of any cohesive elements to the story disheartening and upsetting. Though the plot of Wonderland is anything but coherent and filled with huge, gaping holes and the pacing scattershot at best, the film does have one striking positive working in its favor: it is filled with almost uniformly fantastic acting performances. Kilmer is great as the all-over-the-map Holmes and Kudrow is extremely convincing as the straight-laced Sharon Holmes, but it is Lucas who positively steals the film as the rage-filled cokehead, Ron Launius. Dropping the down-home sweetness he displa.html>spla.html>spla.html>spla.html>splayed in Sweet Home Alabama, Lucas has returned to the indie world with a vengeance, continuing to set the bar for unstable lunatics as he did in Session 9 and The Deep End. Sadly, the stellar acting isn't enough to make up for the poor structure and did-he-or-didn't-he? nature of Wonderland's script. Thanks to its numerous shortcomings, surprisingly up-in-the-air take on the murders, Wonderland was as frustrating a movie as I've seen in the last several months. | |||||
