Inherent Vice (2014), R, ★★

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon sitting on the bench.

Anybody would have a confession to make whether or not they have gone into a work facility for a day being stoned. I think that the whole movie is a stoner and it is intentional. However, when trying to solve a case in the end of an era stirred me up as to how each person is an accessory to the crime. But, what lampoons this whole genre of crime thrillers is that the movie is placed in somebody's frame of mind as a crazed person smoking cigarettes a lot and it is the end of the 1960s. The movie is almost entirely ambitious as to what the filmmakers and the author of the book are trying to do, however, it seems that they substitute the story with humor and period piece episodes and product placement so much that the products goes astray from what it wants to achieve. It does not have the balance.

This is probably one of the most confusing movies that I have to review and I had to see it twice and try to accept it, but, I did get it but I could not grasp onto the final result of the movie. Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is a private investigator and a dope addict that is dazed and confused again and his flirtatious ex-girlfriend, Shasta (Katherine Waterston) visits him to prevent a plot by somebody's wife and her lover kidnap Mickey Wolfmann, Shasta's lover and send him to an insane asylum. Doc only remembers Wolfmann through the TV ads while watching it stoned.

Doc meets with various people tied with cases regarding the Golden Fang---a group that is smuggling drugs into the country. He meets with a member of a Black Panther-esque group about a bodyguard who owes him money. He visits a brothel in Channel View Estates, and is knocked unconscious and awakens in a police station where he is interrogated about the murder of the bodyguard and the disappearance of Wolfmann and Shasta.

Doc is helped by an attorney, Sauncho Smilax (Benicio Del Toro), who is willing to help the LAPD or Doc indiscriminately. And, he also meets Bigfoot Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) of the LAPD who he has a very inconsistent relationship with as co-workers but they respect each other entirely. Bigfoot tries to encourage Doc to become an informant for the police but Doc declines his offer and moves on with his day as he is trying (I mean, trying) to solve the case.

Brolin talking with Del Toro and Phoenix. 

I understand completely that the movie is not entirely about the case and the storyline because each scene is like a puzzle piece but a random puzzle piece out of 1000 puzzle pieces. You get lost and confused for a few minutes and then the movie will transition to another scene and then you say to yourself, "What the hell just happened?" It is the same question that will be in your mind throughout the entire film. The movie is not about the story but it is about the setting and tone of the end of an era. I felt that it was the best element of the film, however, the storyline is scattered and not interesting and that is what the film was sorely lacking.

The storyline does not grasp your attention because you are distracted by the off-beat humor of the characters and their behavior and the pedestrian humor they will tell or show us in the movie. The structure is that it tries to go astray from conventional storytelling and try to make us think on who is the culprit behind the crime. But, the problem with the crime storyline is that it is boring and actually, when really thinking about it, the answer is actually staring at you right at the face and when the culprit is revealed, you will not be surprised.

Some of the casting is great and some are just there just to work with the director but they do not bring anything fresh. Joaquin Phoenix is cast well as the befuddled and stoned-faced detective who is on pot most of the movie and trying to transition into the 1970s. Josh Brolin gives the best performance as a fun and hard-nosed detective who tries to encourage Doc to cooperate with the police and is given funny lines and some mannerisms that are repetitively showy but effective. Reese Witherspoon is also great as the Deputy DA, Katherine Waterston is flirtatious, and Martin Short is scene-stealing as the doctor. But, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Jena Malone, Martin Donovan, Eric Roberts and Maya Rudolph are not given much to do and are not memorable enough to acknowledge.

I liked some of the casting, the production looks great and there is a little bit of humor that made me chuckle or laugh. However, this movie is like I have been stranded in a marijuana fog for 2 and a half hours and made me get a headache as to how this movie was being organized and why the scenes are tonally inconsistent. The great director, Paul Thomas Anderson of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and The Master has made an ambitious film full of neon lights and pot-induced behavior that the tone was so ambiguous that I did not have fun or have the emotional grasp or the intellect to persuade me to continue watching film with an open mind like his other films. I think it is less coherent than Magnolia but Anderson is trying to say something with his movie but in the end, it seemed like a comic presentation that hardly made me laugh and excite me. This will be a frustrating movie to watch because of how the film's tone and structure are sporadic. You have to be stoned to enjoy the experience, I guess.

**