Amazon.com video review:
David Duchovny is a blocked author with a fascination for outlaw
killers who hatches a plan to road trip through America's mass-murder
landmarks to finish his book. He enlists his frustrated photographer
girlfriend Michelle Forbes, who desperately wants to leave the East Coast
for L.A., to illustrate the tome, and they advertise for riding partners.
Luckily for them, they wind up with a veteran killer, the greasy trailer-park
ex-con Brad Pitt, who decides to skip parole with his cowering child-woman
girlfriend Juliette Lewis. Duchovny is enamored by gun-toting Pitt's
recklessness and lawless disregard for, well, everything; he's simultaneously
terrified and thrilled by Pitt's brutal beating of a barfly. Meanwhile, Pitt's
leaving a trail of corpses in their wake.
Directed with a cool remove by Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds
2000), Kalifornia falls somewhere between Badlands and
Natural Born Killers. Pitt brings a ferocious magnetism to his part, but
it's still hard to buy genial Duchovny's odd attraction; Juliette Lewis conveys a
terrifying sense of victimization with her poor dumb creature. Despite the film's
best efforts, it never really plumbs the psyche of Pitt's
simmering psycho--he's just plain bad, you know--but it does fashion an
effective little thriller out of the tensions brewing in the restless
quartet. --Sean Axmaker
