*Originally written January 8th, 2016*
"Incoherent Vice"
I was really hoping Inherent Vice would grow on me with this watch, I didn't enjoy it the first time round and sadly I probably liked it even less on a rewatch. I honestly believe that 'Incoherent Vice' would be a more apt title.
The two and a half hour detective comedy stars Joaquin Phoenix as private detective 'Doc' in 1970's LA investigating the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend. It's a big shame I didn't like this too. I love private detective films, especially ones set it in the '70s.
It's a frustrating watch to say the least. It's a film I want to love but just can't. Everyone involved is just great and it gives you stylish and real feeling of the '70s, it's just a shame that the story is so incoherent. I honestly had no idea what was going on most of the time, which would have been fine had the film had other things for me to focus on. Like Filth for example, the story takes a backseat for a character focused story, but here I didn't connect with Phoenix's 'Doc' at all.
Phoenix did give an excellent performance though, capturing that spaced out feeling and also delivering some funny scenes. There is a huge cast of well known actors with memorable cameos. So the cast isn't the problem here.
The biggest problem I found was the length. At 2 and a half hours of unintelligible story-telling it was just unbearable, I honestly checked the time and was shocked to find out it had only been 20 minutes, I was so close to turning it off a few times, but I stuck with it. Goddamn you, Dan, you could have turned it off and watched something you would have enjoyed.
I am really interested to see if the book the film is based on is as frustrating as the film. I read this is quite faithful, so I don't think I'm ready for a read of this quite just yet....
Inherent Vice might have captured that hazy, drug-fuelled feeling of '70s L.A., but it was sadly far to abstract for me to enjoy with its unbearably long running time, despite some great performances
3/10 Dans
Inherent Vice is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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