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Directed By
David Dobkin
Written By:
Matthew Healy
Cast:
Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix, Janeane Garofalo, Scott Wilson, Georgina Cates, Phil Morris, Vince Vieluf, Gregory Sporleder, Joseph D. Reitman, Nikki Arlyn, Monica Moench, Joseph D. Reitman
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Clay Pigeons (1998)
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Movie Review by Tony 
April 4th, 2006
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"Clay Pigeons" is actor friendly, but not plot, character development, or theory friendly. It's one of those black comedies with a hint of drama, thriller, and crime thrown in the mix. This film is obviously heavily influenced by the 1996 hit "Fargo." On it's own, it's a decent little film, and not the worst time you will have at the movies, but in the end you feel this had the material for a great film, but just missed.
The film opens and we meet Clay Birdwell (Joaquin Phoenix) and his best friend Earl doing some shooting. Earl confronts Clay about having an affair with his wife Amanda (Georgina Cates) and it turns into a heated argument. Earl kills himself and sets it up to look as if Clay murdered him. Unsure what to do, he pushes the dead body off a road and the car and Earl explode getting rid of any and all evidence.
The police buy the story and Clay is ready to move on with his life as best he can and put this troubling situation behind him. Along the way, he has to deal with Amanda, and also a man he meets while playing pool Lester (Vince Vaughn). We then get involved in a whole hornets nest of dead bodies, crime, lying, and cheating. To go into any more detail would be giving away plot twists, pay offs, and other things that are best left to be seen while viewing the film.
The film is directed by David Dobkin who also directed the Vaughn film "Wedding Crashers". His problem is he puts so much in films, sometimes he would benefit from leaving some things out. The film starts off with an interesting and unique premise, but we get a whole lot of stuff happening and never any time to look around and smell the roses. It gets overly complicated, contrived, and worked.
You do have some wonderful performances by Vaughn, Phoenix, Garofalo (doing her best Frances MacDormand in "Fargo" impersonation) as well as other find actors. Let them showcase their talents and acting abilities and not get us bogged down in plot devices, and complication. Show us who the characters are, why they do what they do, what's their reasoning. We never really get into that at all in this film.
This was the directors first major film and I think he wanted to show and do so much, it really hurt the story telling and overall feel of the film. He didn't know what to take out, what to put in, and what to show. This could have been a simple but good film. But in the end, it turns into a film that is too long and too much.
-Tony Farinella
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