On the upper edge of the San Fernando Valley, where urban Los Angeles shows its Wild West roots, 17-year-old Tobe (Wood) lives with her little brother Lonnie (Culkin) and her single dad (Morse). Enter a smiling stranger, Harlan (Norton), adopted by Tobe as her own personal project, partly to rebel against her dad. Harlan is a nice guy with some seriously creepy shadows around the edges. Is he really a naive South Dakota hick? Or maybe a charming desperado?

Writer-director Jacobson inventively brings the attitude and visual style of a Western into modern-day America, blending themes and settings, referencing classic movies and even stumbling onto a ghost-town film set in the hills. This juxtaposition is boldly and cleverly done, and it gives the film a texture that adds meaning to an already jam-packed tale of ambition, deception and family ties.

This is actually Tobe and Lonnie's story, and both Wood and Culkin give fully formed performances that are complex and surprising, balancing steely bravado with tender vulnerability. And Morse is superb as the security officer (read sheriff) trying to keep his already fragile family from collapsing entirely.

But the film has obviously been adapted into a star vehicle for Norton, placing Harlan front and centre, and giving the actor a seemingly endless stream of scenes in which he can really flex his acting chops. It's no surprise that he's up to the challenge--Norton is terrific at this kind of unhinged character. But we never escape the sense that he's reaching for DeNiro comparisons, right up to the moment when he's talking into a mirror, with a gun drawn.

While it does feel somewhat stretched and overwrought, this is also a powerfully well-told story. The dialog is funny, tense and realistic, and there's an almost overwhelming sense that it's leading to a terrible tragedy. Which creates a startlingly creepy, often scary atmosphere that really gets under our skin.

themes, language, violence, sexuality

7.Feb.06