Salton Sea

Salton Sea is a movie that thinks it’s a film, which is mostly OK, except when it gets into pretentious voice-overs. For the most part, though, it’s a real decent film noir, with an updated, bloodier sensibility. Val Kilmer doesn’t suck as the duplicitous protagonist, and Vincent D’Onofrio and Doug Hutchison are both excellent as a villainous drug dealer and a villainous police man, respectively. When Salton Sea aims high it misses, but when it goes for the old-fashioned James M. Cain style, it’s pretty successful. Good viewing for fans of the genre, or fans of Kilmer’s finely muscled torso and pretty, yet not-unmanly, features. He’s noir-a-licious!