One Word Movie

Down in the Valley

Poor old Ed Norton, he's not quite as du jour as he used to be. One minute he's growing a comedy beard while rebuffing flattering comparisons with the young Brando, and the next he goes and makes some movies like The 25th Hour (shit), The Italian Job (shit) or Red Dragon (shit). It's OK Eddie, it could happen to anyone. What happened next is that Ed's agent probably offered him second lead in a Shatner flick where The Shat gets dumped by the woman in Star Trek IV (they couldn't afford Rene Russo), and she goes off with Ed's character, but realises it was a terrible mistake when Ed gets her chocolate labrador drunk and then it chews up her orchid collection and Ed doesn't show a bit of remorse because it was the dog's fault not his, so she gets back with The Shat and then the credits roll to some jangly country music and everyone in the cinema wished they'd stayed at home and watched Green Card again on BBC9.

So maybe something like this never happened, but Ed did take a couple of years off after making all those shit movies. Why I think he came back is that he was envious of Jake Gyllenhaal and his massive du jour-ness. After Ed saw Brokeback Mountain I think he had something to prove, so he decided he was going to make a cowboy movie too, but this one was going to be interesting and original, where Gyllenhaal's was just painted-on gay. So Ed made Down in the Valley, and everyone absolutely acts the living shit out of it.

It's a very interesting film, well shot, with a sense of humour and Hope Sandoval on the soundtrack. You really don't know what's going to happen next, and I did find the ending moving, apart from I couldn't help but think of a certain scene in The Big Lebowski which contaminated it a bit. But this film is good anyway and it's nice to see Ed Norton back, with or without the funny wee facial hairstylings.

posted by Chairman Peyote @ 3:52 AM