Filled with unexpected vaguely surreal touches. This is a movie that gradually reveals more and more about a very isolated guy. You know there's a history there, and you get some idea of what it's about, but the final substrate of personality and circumstance is always hidden.
The very end should remind you of the original Bad lieutenant with Keitel, in terms of the strange gift and sacrifice. But here it's more about a guy who just submits, so exhausted by circumstance that he just arranges an avoidable but personally needed conclusion.
You should also be reminded of Harry Dean Stanton's Swan Song film "Lucky" which is superficially identical to this.......a loner living in a New Mexican Hovel. The difference being that Lucky is very life affirming and this is about total exhausted despair looking for an excuse to die.
But really, these movies, except perhaps the Lieutenant deal, are not about plot. What there is of a plot is just an excuse to present a mood. And Sizemore certainly accomplishes that. I have seen him so many times, but never in a role that lets you see the intelligence, the strength as an actor who plays a role so well, that it seems like you really are seeing the man.
I felt that this sort of 'existential' intelligence and an existence that exemplifies it, were authentic to the point that I felt the actor himself personally had acquaintance at points in his life to bring this kind of virtuosic authority to the part.
The odd Romance with Ariel, that seems hallucinatory even when it's more or less real, seems the only sidetrack. Surreality frequently enough invades many lives that go sideways, but they don't usually come complete with earth angels, emphasized in this case by her name. More often in reality it's just internet porn or hookers, not beautiful women just knock on your door out of the blue.....but then, this is a Calico Sky, so we have to allow for truly impossible things, and the odds of winning the power ball tristate lottery are dwarfed by the odds of trophy women knocking on a broke bum's door.
Also, Vincent Pastore as the Reluctant Angel of Death is interesting here.
This and 'Lucky' are companion pieces. On a desert island I'd take 'Lucky' if my only choice was between these 2 movies, but this is certainly worth the time.
The very end should remind you of the original Bad lieutenant with Keitel, in terms of the strange gift and sacrifice. But here it's more about a guy who just submits, so exhausted by circumstance that he just arranges an avoidable but personally needed conclusion.
You should also be reminded of Harry Dean Stanton's Swan Song film "Lucky" which is superficially identical to this.......a loner living in a New Mexican Hovel. The difference being that Lucky is very life affirming and this is about total exhausted despair looking for an excuse to die.
But really, these movies, except perhaps the Lieutenant deal, are not about plot. What there is of a plot is just an excuse to present a mood. And Sizemore certainly accomplishes that. I have seen him so many times, but never in a role that lets you see the intelligence, the strength as an actor who plays a role so well, that it seems like you really are seeing the man.
I felt that this sort of 'existential' intelligence and an existence that exemplifies it, were authentic to the point that I felt the actor himself personally had acquaintance at points in his life to bring this kind of virtuosic authority to the part.
The odd Romance with Ariel, that seems hallucinatory even when it's more or less real, seems the only sidetrack. Surreality frequently enough invades many lives that go sideways, but they don't usually come complete with earth angels, emphasized in this case by her name. More often in reality it's just internet porn or hookers, not beautiful women just knock on your door out of the blue.....but then, this is a Calico Sky, so we have to allow for truly impossible things, and the odds of winning the power ball tristate lottery are dwarfed by the odds of trophy women knocking on a broke bum's door.
Also, Vincent Pastore as the Reluctant Angel of Death is interesting here.
This and 'Lucky' are companion pieces. On a desert island I'd take 'Lucky' if my only choice was between these 2 movies, but this is certainly worth the time.