black comedy directed
by : Richard Kelly featuring
: Dwayne Johnson - Seann William Scott - Sarah Michelle Gellar -
Curtis Armstrong - Joe Campana running
time : 2 hours 41 minutes
California is at the
epicenter of a political and environmental disaster that threatens to destroy
the world in this ambitious fusion of comedy, drama, dystopian science
fiction, and music from writer and director Richard Kelly, his first film
after gaining a cult following with Donnie Darko. In the year 2005, a nuclear
attack wipes out part of the state of Texas, and three years later America
is a virtual police state, with the government taking control of nearly
every part of people's lives, supposedly for their own good. A German firm
has found a way to generate energy using seawater, but both public and
private concerns are desperate to prevent the new technology from being
introduced in the gasoline-starved United States. A Marxist underground
based on the West Coast is determined to bring down the federal government
through violent revolution. In this midst of this chaos, we follow a number
of stories that continually return to three principle characters. Boxer
Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock) is an actor famous for his role
in action films; he's trying to secure financing for a new project, but
reality keeps mirroring the events in his script and he struggles to hold
on to his identity following a bout with amnesia. Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle
Gellar) is a porn star who is reinventing herself as a television pundit
offering her views on politics, contemporary culture, and teenage sex.
And Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) is an L.A. police officer whose
identity has mysteriously split in two and he struggles to track down his
other half. Featuring a massive supporting cast which includes Mandy Moore,
Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Smith, Amy Poehler,
and Justin Timberlake, Southland Tales received its world premiere at the
2006 Cannes Film Festival; director Kelly also created an accompanying
series of three graphic novels which chart these events and characters
prior to this story.
