Clay Pigeons (1998)

I like Vince Vaughn. I always have, even in the first thing I ever saw him in ... which was, unfortunately, The Lost World.

What I've always liked about Vaughn -- and what I feel like filmmakers are only now, since Old School, really starting to figure out how to use -- is the weird mix of movie-star looks, goofy affability, and undercurrent of downright creepiness that he brings to the screen. There's just something a little off about the guy, and it's hard to put a finger on what it is. He's like the neighbor who lives in the apartment downstairs who always has a big smile and a friendly wave, who makes weird noises at night, and who seems like he should be a player with the ladies but who never seems to have a girl around and who you think might actually be some kind of weird diaper fetishist or something. The Psycho remake may have been an embarrasing load of shit, but I thought Vaughn made a pretty excellent Norman Bates.

Clay Pigeons is one of the only other movies I've seen that really takes that Vince Vaughn ... er ... charisma and puts it to maximum use. He plays Lester Long, a guy who may or may not be a cowboy but who is definitely a serial killer.

The movie concerns Clay (Joaquin Phoenix, not doing anything spectacular), a small town mechanic who's been sleeping with his best friend's wife, Amanda (Georgina Cates). When said friend kills himself and tries to frame Clay for murder, things go downhill fast in a way that is very much inspired by the Coens' Fargo and Blood Simple.

This movie is nowhere near as good as either of those. The filmmaking itself is okay, but uninspired. The tone is all over the place, unable to decide if it's a neo-noir crime thriller or a black comedy. Joaquin Phoenix is, well, Joaquin Phoenix. Cates is laughably bad. Scott Wilson looks like he's about to cry every time he's onscreen. About a half-hour in I was getting pretty bored.

But then Vaughn saunters into the movie with his cowboy shirts and ten-gallon had, and that's when the movie takes a left turn and starts to really cook. He's like No Country For Old Men's Anton Chigurgh if Chigurgh had a reedy high-pitched laugh, a wink and a smile, and an easy way with the ladies.

There's no new ground being paved here, but Clay Pigeons is worth catching up with if you remember fondly that whole wave of late 90s indie-style, wannabe-cult crime movies (A Simple Plan, Red Rock West, Out of Sight, etc.) that seemed to spring directly from the loins of Fargo and Pulp Fiction. This isn't the best of the lot, but it's pretty solid. Watch it for the scene where Vaughn tries to seduce Janine Garafolo's snarly FBI agent in the bar, if for nothing else.