Written and directed by David Jacobson

With: Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, Rory Culkin and David Morse

125 minutes in CinemaScope

The delusional son of an orthodox Jew (he fancies himself a modern-day cowboy) takes up with the defiant teenage daughter of a corrections officer. A Jew wearing a cowboy hat?! Only at gunpoint!

Born and bored in the San Fernando Valley, teenage Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) passes the day teaching her younger brother Twig (Rory Culkin) how to smoke cigarettes and properly spit off an overpass. With mom out of the picture, Tobe will do anything to escape Wade (David Morse), her overprotective father. Wade disapproves of the siblings’ close relationship, particularly Twig’s habit of sleeping in his sister’s room. Just wait ’til an older drifter looking to date his barely legal daughter attempts to gain his trust.

As with all cinematic psychos, Harlan (Edward Norton) can be very charismatic, and for the first few reels, Norton and Jacobson do their best to exploit the character’s magnetism. Positioned in the back of a carload of friends, Tobe can’t help but be moved by the seemingly uncomplicated innocence of the gas station attendant sporting an anachronistic cowboy hat. The lovers are introduced in a striking two-shot with Tobe gazing out the rear window and catching Norton’s eye as he fills the tank. Even a rack focus shot, long the bane of this critic’s existence, is perfectly timed and executed.

After a day at the beach (and sex on the first date) it’s time to meet the future in-laws. Harlan knows all the right suck-up moves. No sooner does he invite Twig along for a burger than dad pulls in the driveway. Harlans’ sincere appeal for paternal acceptance earns Wade’s qualified approval.

The transition from amiable gas jockey to psychopath is none too smooth. In one scene he’s literally charming the pants off Tobe, the next he’s a junior Travis Bickle playing shootout in his motel room and waxing poetic over human folly. It’s at about this point in the picture that the endless tributes to films past, particularly the works of Martin Scorsese, begin to take hold.

As with any good Bickle substitute, Harlan lives in a flophouse and reads aloud from letters he writes to the folks back home. He even observes his marksmanship in the mirror, but fails to question his reflection. Harlan stops just short of trading in his stolen horse for a taxi cab and getting a mohawk at Supercuts.

When attempting to save face with Tobe and extricate the couple from a prickly situation with a local rancher (Bruce Dern), you can’t help but think of Rupert and Rita’s embarrassing invasion of Jerry Langford’s home in The King of Comedy. To make sure that the people in the cheap seats get the gag, we later find out that his birth name is Martin, not Harlan!

And the references don’t stop with Scorsese. Twig’s adoration for father-substitute Harlan culminates in a scene of target practice lifted straight out of Shane. Badlands and countless other films in which an older psychopath takes up with a troubled teen instantly spring to mind. Harlan’s monotone motel room voiceovers sound like one of Martin Sheen’s outtakes from Apocalypse Now.

So why a “three star” review coming from a guy always quick to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of failure? In recent years, Scorsese has slowed down to a near Kubrick-like pace, and even a simulation stimulates me. Jacobson presents his “tributes” with such unashamed affection that they’re hard resist.

There are also the impeccable performances by the four leads. Norton and Morse are old hands when it comes to exploring their dark sides.

And I don’t know what was in the water, but all those Culkin kids sure are blossoming into fine actors.

During a bathtub love scene, Jacobson finds a fresh way in which to edit a reverse-angle conversation. The standard manner of filming a two-actor dialogue scene consists of shooting from one character’s point of view, generally over their shoulder. This is followed by a cut to the other participant’s POV. Instead of adhering to a rigid shot-reverse-shot approach, the scene plays out in slow pans and tender dissolves.

Another pet hate concerns overlit night scenes or the dreaded use of “day for night.” The latter involves shooting a scene in broad daylight with a filter slapped over the lens to simulate darkness.

There is nothing funnier than seeing a character’s shadow at two o’clock in the morning. Never has a nighttime scene looked more authentic than Valley’s flashlight-free final chase through the forest.

If I held off on praising Ms. Wood’s performance, it was done so only in an attempt to save the best for last. She started acting on television when she was 7 years old. Since Thirteen (2003), she has appeared in five features and there’s not a bad performance in the bunch. Here is an actress so confident of her abilities that she never strays from the moment. You will literally be unable to take your eyes off her as she single-handedly paves over many of the film’s less imaginative lapses.

Rating:

Directed by James Marsh

Written by Milo Addica and James Marsh

With: Gael Garcia Bernal, Pell James, William Hurt and Paul Dano

105 minutes in CinemaScope

Occasionally you will find two remarkably similar-themed films released simultaneously. I first noticed this when The Last Detail and Cinderella Liberty were released a week apart during the Christmas ’73 package. At least those two films shared the same author.

The lifts just keep on coming. If Down in the Valley plumbed Scorsese’s middle period, The King pays a similar visit to Cape Fear.

A recently discharged sailor named Elvis (Gael Garcia Bernal) heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, in search of his long lost father. You can read a lot into a character who follows a stopover at a whorehouse with a visit to a local church where he hits on a 16-year-old girl. The plot seems to echo and endorse the relatively recent media discovery that 16 is the new 30.

William Hurt plays preacher David, the sinner-turned-savior father of Malerie (Pell James), his chaste yet eager-to-be-dirtied-by-a-drifter daughter, and Paul (Paul Dano) his older, overzealous son.

While not looking for dad or delivering pizzas, Elvis plans an exact revenge against this well-respected pillar of the community who may have had an affair with his mother. Any guesses where this is going to end up? His reprisal comes in the form of Elvis wooing and winning over David’s underage daughter.

If Evan Rachel Wood played Tobe with carnal abandon, Malerie is your garden variety goody two-shoes minister’s daughter with a healthy dose of sexual curiosity. This film is more sexually explicit than Valley, a disturbing fact when you consider how convincingly Ms. Pell plays a 16-year-old. In fact, she was a few years shy of 30 when she played the role. Good genes!

In fear that his secret past will become common gossip, David gradually accepts Elvis as a member of his family. Elvis proves to be of great strength and support when Paul, disgusted by his sister’s taking up with a heathen, is reported missing.

Given our current political climate, Marsh scores points for depicting a recently released soldier as someone whose troubled-to-the-point-of-dementia conduct makes him anything but heroic. The film’s anti-religious tactics delight in chipping away at Christian rock, the horrors of Darwinism and Bush’s favorite strain of secular mumbo-jumbo, “intelligent design.”

Unlike Tobe and Harlan, Malerie becomes a willing accomplice in Elvis’ deadly game of payback. Bernal once again delivers an astonishing performance; his soldier’s stealth and calm demeanor mask an unflinching sociopath. Ms. Pell’s credits did little to jog the memory, but gauging by this performance I won’t soon forget her face.

I love my DVDs, but nothing beats the big-screen treatment, and 95 percent of new films that I watch each year are in a theater. Occasionally I’ll rely on a screening copy for my second visit. Nowadays it is practically impossible to get an advance copy that isn’t letterboxed.

The version they previewed at Hillcrest was 2.35:1 anamorphic, while the letterboxed DVD was 1.85:1 and neither looked the least bit compromised. I’m stumped!

It ended a reel too late for me. Instead of following narrative logic, the film concludes with a bloodbath. While The King failed to find me proclaiming sovereignty for James Marsh, he claimed me as one of his followers for 105 minutes.

Rating: 1/2