2 Days in the Valley

You may not have heard of this movie but its brilliance transcends its anonymity. An odd little flick, with an odd little cast, in odd little situations with odd dialogue and an odd soundtrack, Two Days is an incredibly focused take on life in, you betcha, the valley in Los Angeles.

The plot is, well, odd: Dosmo (Aiello), a hit man, whacks a husband for insurance purposes but is caught up in a similar scam by his partner (Spader) who intends to top Dosmo for reasons of self-promotion. But Dosmo, suitably irked, is having none of it, as you would imagine, and takes a hostage. Spader essentially takes hostages too, a pair of odd cops with barely a brain between them (Stoltz and Daniels), wanting his money but not getting it. Hilarity and oddness ensues.

A parody of Hollywood's endless stream of commodified flicks, Two Days undercuts the generic quality of its plot and characters with sharpness of characterisation, odd humour and sheer visual panache. A movie that offers a slant on L.A. so original and pointed that it makes most slick flicks look rather inane and juvenile by comparison.

Pauline Lak