Clay Pigeons (1998)

Clay (as in the title) is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife. Feeling guilty, Clay now ... See full summary »

Director:

David Dobkin

Writer:

Matthew L. Healy

Stars:

Joaquin Phoenix, Gregory Sporleder, Vince Vaughn

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Joaquin Phoenix	...	Clay Bidwell
Gregory Sporleder	...	Earl
Georgina Cates	...	Amanda
Scott Wilson	...	Sheriff Dan Mooney
Vince Vieluf	...	Deputy Barney
Wayne Brennan	...	Minister
Joseph D. Reitman	...	Glen
Vince Vaughn	...	Lester Long
Nicole Arlyn	...	Gloria Collins (as Nikki Arlyn)
Jeff Olson	...	Mark
Monica Moench	...	Kimberly
Kevin Rahm	...	Bystander at Amanda's
Jesse Bennett	...	Dr. Jaffe
Phil Morris	...	Agent Reynard
Janeane Garofalo	...	Agent Dale Shelby

Storyline

Clay (as in the title) is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists the widow when she presses him to continue with their sexual affairs. Into this comes a serial killer who befriends Clay, even to murdering the nagging widow for him... but certainly not at Clay's request. But that doesn't matter for the police, as well as for a savvy female FBI agent who sees Clay as their prime suspect. Yet Clay doesn't tell them of his 'friend' who admits to him of his serial killings, primarily because Clay sees himself as somewhat of an accomplice, in that he seems to have introduced to the killer each young woman that is killed... in fact, the sheriff comments that he wishes Clay would quit finding the murdered victims, which he always seems to do. But at last Clay is able to turn from being the pigeon... to giving the film its very unpredictable conclusion.

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Plot Keywords:

widow | fbi | serial killer | small town | nude woman murdered | 

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Taglines:

Some killers are strange, some are deranged, and some are just plain psycho.

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong scenes of sexuality, language and violence

Details

Country:

Germany USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 September 1998 (USA)

Also Known As:

In Too Deep

Filming Locations:

Brigham City, Utah, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$8,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$167,364 (USA) (25 September 1998)

Gross:

$1,789,892 (USA) (13 November 1998)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fade In Films, IMF Internationale Medien und Film GmbH & Co. Produktions KG, Intermedia Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color Black and White (one scene)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was titled "Il Sapore del sangue" for its release in Italy. The title translates to "The Taste of Blood", referring to the scene where Lester licks his finger after cutting it on a kitchen knife.

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Goofs

The shot starts off with a full sized powdered donut being dipped into a red coffee mug thats obviously too small for the huge donut. Next shot is Clay's boss bringing a half-eaten donut to his mouth as Clay walks into the shop, apparently late again. He looks over his shoulder, and back to the donut. He then brings a large white styrofoam coffee cup into frame and dips the last bit of donut into it.

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Quotes

Lester: I'm Lester. Lester the uh, molester.

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Crazy Credits

At the end of the closing credits Lester Long says "You gotta good sense of humor, I like that" and does his bizarre laugh.

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Connections

References The X-Files (1993)

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Soundtracks

"Moon Over Montana"
Written by Jimmy Wakely and Oliver Drake
Performed by Jimmy Wakely
Courtesy of Capitol Nashville

User Reviews

Surprisingly good

I usually don't read many comments here at IMDb before I have seen a certain film, I only read a few. But before I saw "Clay Pigeons" I read them all and after having done so I didn't exactly expect much when I pushed "play" on the remote control. I'm not saying that that is the only reason why I liked this movie so much, because I really thought that it was a good film. Not a masterpiece of course, but the script is witty, the acting great, and the movie in itself is quite entertaining -- it's never boring. I really, really like Joaquin Phoenix, he is one of the best young actors around now, and he didn't disappoint me in this film -- far from it. He's quite brilliant. Vince Vaughn must have had a great time playing Lester Long, you can see that he is comfortable with his character and Vaughn is better than I'd ever expected, however, for me it's Phoenix's film. He truly is amazing. As for Janeane Garofalo, she's certainly not bad, but neither very good, but that's mainly because she's in the shadow of Vaughn and Phoenix. Overall, an entertaining and rather funny film, way better than I expected. (7/10)