Yielding to temptation can land someone in serious trouble, and this is what happens to the protagonist of Clay Pigeons, 1998 black comedy written and directed by David Dobkin. Clay Bidwell (played by Joaquin Phoenix), young man living in small Montana town, has romantic relationship with attractive but promiscuous Amanda (played by Georgina Cates). She happens to be married to Clay’s best friend Earl (played by Gregory Sporleder) who, upon learning this, commits suicide, but not before setting up his act as murder committed by Clay. Not wanting to go to prison for something he didn’t do, Clay is forced to move Earl’s corpse in order to stage the event as accident. He is again forced to do the same when Amanda, unhappy over Clay’s refusal to continue the relationship, murders a waitress he has briefly dated. Clay comes under suspicion of Dan Mooney (played by Scott Wilson), local sheriff who actually likes young man but can’t ignore his connection with incidents occurring in his town. The only person who appears to have understanding for Clay’s trouble is Lester Long (played by Vincent Vaughn), flamboyant cowboy-like truck driver who upon an arrival in town quickly becomes Clay’s best friend. Clay, however, doesn’t know that Long is actually a vicious serial killer responsible for series of murders and disappearances investigated by FBI led by Special Agent Dale Shelby (played by Janeane Garofalo).
Clay Pigeons was feature debut for David Dobkin, director until that time mostly known for music videos. His previous work has caught attention of brothers Ridley and Tony Scott, who had started career in the similar milieu and who decided to finance Dobkin’s project. The film, however, owe less to MTV and more to Quentin Tarantino, whose content formula based on gallows humour, plenty of violence and pop culture references is brought to rural Midwestern setting and spiced up with country and western soundtrack. Dobkin tried and, to a certain degree, succeeded to fill the film with unusual characters and situations but he mishandled balance between darker tones and humour, while the final part of the film looks unconvincing and overlong. The cast is doing decent job, mainly Joaquin Phoenix and Vincent Vaughn (who had more successful pairing in Return to Paradise, drama released in the same year). Janeane Garofalo is interesting as unconventional FBI agent, while veteran Scott Wilson is very convincing as sheriff more intelligent than he looks at first sight. British actress Georgina Cates is, however, the most impressive in her role of outrageously evil rural femme fatale, although her character leaves this film relatively early. Efforts of the cast, however, can’t compensate for film’s shortcomings and Clay Pigeons ends as disappointment.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
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