CLAY PIGEONS

• Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn and Janeane Garofalo
• Directed by David Dobkin
• Rated R with violence, profanity, nudity and sex; running time 108 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 7

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Oct. 9, 1998) -- Clay Bidwell is having a run of bad luck.

The young man keeps bumping into dead people. His friends and neighbors in tiny Mercer, Mont., figure he's the reason they end up dead.

Clay's problems start in the opening scene of Clay Pigeons. He's doing target practice in the desert with his buddy, Earl, when Earl accuses Clay of sleeping with his wife.

With Clay (Joaquin Phoenix) looking on, Earl kills himself after first framing Clay for what will appear to be a murder.

And that's just the beginning. Other bodies start piling up, and before long, the town sheriff puts Clay in the slammer.

Then a visiting FBI agent (Janeane Garofalo) arrives to question the hard-luck boy about a series of brutal slayings across the West.

With no direct evidence, authorities are forced to free Clay. He gets out of jail just in time to make a new friend, a lanky cowboy drifter named Lester Long (Vince Vaughn).

Lester likes to go fishing, flirt with waitresses at the local diner and shoot pool with his new buddy. He is a goofy but charismatic charmer who swears, "I never forget a friend." That's not necessarily a good thing.

Clay Pigeons is a modest entry in the growing field of neo-noir films. Typical of the breed, the film is set in the gloomy isolation of the American West, instead of the big-city alleys and warehouses of the original crime noirs of the 1940s and '50s.

The darkly comedic melodrama is well-acted and entertaining, though a bit pale compared to some illustrious predecessors. It lacks the demented wit of Blood Simple, the taut plot twists of Red Rock West or the steaming sex appeal of The Hot Spot, for example.

But it does offer three interesting, contrasting characters.

Phoenix appropriately projects Clay's dull, befuddled mind-set and manages to stir sympathy for his loser's plight. Filmgoers will more likely be drawn to his two co-stars, though.

Garofalo is an ideal choice to display the sharply sophisticated humor of the only intelligent character in the tale. Talk about bad luck: This agent finds herself investigating a case in a hick town where the town deputy is really named Barney.

But Clay Pigeons gets most of its energy from the wonderfully sly and slimy performance by Vaughn. Lester is a warped country cousin of the hustler Vaughn played when he debuted in the cult hit Swingers.