DJ Caruso

  • The Salton Sea (2002)

    The Salton Sea (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) There’s a neo-noir sensibility to The Salton Sea that is not necessarily apparent from its first few minutes, considering that it begins with a surprisingly funny explanation of where meth comes from and the curious community that forms between junkies in a crack-house. But as the lead character tells the audience, we haven’t heard the entire story and should wait before judging. Things get kicked in second gear soon after, as a visit to a not-so-friendly neighbourhood drug dealer leads to the protagonist calling the police as an informant. There’s clearly another narrative at play, especially when our protagonist starts thinking about his past life as a jazz musician. Plot-heavy but stylishly directed, The Salton Sea proves to be an auspicious feature film debut for director D. J. Caruso, who would go on to direct an uneven but intriguing corpus of thrillers. It stars Val Kilmer in one of his last good leading roles before a lengthy eclipse (though there’s an interesting link to be made here between The Salton Sea and the following year’s Wonderland, both set in the Los Angeles underworld), and features Vincent D’Onofrio in a usually creepy turn. The plot twists and turns and twists some more with a few happenstances thrown in for good measure, but eventually settles for a satisfying conclusion. The Salton Sea probably works better now than it did upon release — its hodgepodge borrowing of other films and showy style have grown a bit less unusual, and the film no longer labours under the shadow of Tarantino. It’s not a bad watch, but it does make one yearn for the late career that Kilmer never had.

  • I Am Number Four (2011)

    I Am Number Four (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Hotel pay-per-view, April 2011) Most movies are at least as much commerce than art, but for some films, the balance is so obviously tilted toward making money that it becomes difficult to see it as anything but a cynical cash-grab.  It’s impossible to watch I Am Number Four without being reminded that studios are still trying to mine popular teen/children’s series for a Twilight/Harry-Potter-like franchise.  (Count the failures that have not been followed by sequels: Eragon, Spiderwick Chronicles, Golden Compass, Lemony Snickett, Percy Jackson, etc…)  This case is even worse given how the film comes from a first volume in a book series cynically designed by James Frey’s “Full Fathom Five” creative factory as a deliberate attempt to cash in on the young-adult market.  It’s easy to see how the franchising mindset affects the product: The sub-literate SF premise of the series is soft fantasy executed through aliens, the writers going through ridiculous lengths to contain their stories within an American high school.  Everything is set up to lead to the next instalment, the usual teen-fiction narrative buttons pushed without subtlety along the way.  Perhaps the only saving grace of the finished product is that it’s reasonably well-made.  Director D.J. Caruso has done some good work before, and if this kind of for-hire work is a step down from clever thrillers like Disturbia and Eagle Eye, he’s able to give enough energy to the film to carry it past the laborious setup and the most predictable plot turns.  Only the CGI looks particularly overdone, without physicality or subtlety of movement.  As blatantly manipulative as it can be, I Am Number Four has a few good moments, and an antagonist that seems to be played with some self-aware irony –quite a change from the po-faced human characters all trying to be as blandly serious as possible.  While I Am Number Four is not particularly good, it’s not terrible either, and if you can ignore the blatant “first in a series” annoyances, it’s an average entry in the teen-fantasy genre.  Odds aren’t high that it’ll lead to a franchise, though.