2 Days in the Valley (1996)

Boring

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

John Herzfeld's film is one of Intersecting narratives set in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. It chronicles a violent and profane tale of how the lives and deaths of a dozen various people intersect over the course of two days. The director's method is to introduce his characters in seemingly unrelated scenes and then eventually connect them together. The technique has been done before: "American Graffiti" (1973) and "Pulp Fiction" (1994) come to mind.Two hit men, cold-blooded psychopath Lee Woods (James Spader) and faded Dosmo (Danny Aiello), are hired to kill for insurance money the womanizing ex-husband (Ray Foxx = Peter Horton) of scheming Olympic skier Becky Foxx (Teri Hatcher). Despite his lethal line of work," Dosmo shows compassion; he is even afraid of dogs. On the other hand, Lee is a sadist who gives his victims one minute to get their affairs in order. Lee's girl is Helga (Charlize Theron). The subsequent crime scene is somewhat later stumbled upon by two vice cops: quixotic Wes Taylor (Eric Stoltz) and exasperated Alvin Strayer (Jeff Daniels). When the two cops were staking out an Asian massage parlor, Wes refused to arrest lovely Vietnamese girl Midori (Kathleen Luong). Alvin is not happy because he does not want any vice dens in the valley. Unlike Wes, he doesn't want to get involved in a homicide investigation. In the second half of the movie he is ordered to turn in his badge and gun. Later, real homicide detective Creighton (Keith Carradine) is assigned to the case. Obnoxious and patronizing British art dealer Allan Hopper (Greg Cruttwell), who sustains a kidney stone attack in the middle of a busy LA street, is assisted by his dutiful secretary Susan Parish (Glenne Headly). He continually denigrates her with unflattering comments.Down-and-out movie director Teddy Peppers (Paul Mazursky), four months behind in his rent, contemplates suicide but doesn't want to see his beloved dog homeless. At first he decides to shoot him after one last walk in the park. There he meets Ralph Crupi (Austin Pendleton), who, while smiling, proceeds to insensitively criticize Peppers' screen failures. Eventually Peppers resolves to find someone to care for his dog. When he spots compassionate nurse (Audrey Hopper = Marsha Mason) in a cemetery he introduces himself to her. In time we will learn that Audrey is Allan Hopper's half- sister. Kindheartedly, Audrey senses Teddy's distress and brings him to her brother's house. Meanwhile, after the hit, Lee shoots Dosmo so that he can have the insurance payment all to himself. Dosmo, though, is smarter than he seems and correctly suspected Lee: he wore a bullet proof vest. Thus he survives both a bullet and a blown-up car. Disheveled, Dosmo stumbles upon Hopper's residence and takes him and Susan hostage. Hungry, he cooks a pasta and sauce dinner for all of them. Dosmo plans on taking Hopper's car. Before that, he warns Hopper to stop insulting Susan and slaps him. Susan says to Dosmo, "Please don't hurt him. He doesn't mean anything by it. It's just his nature to be cruel." At this point no more bits of information are being provided as they will necessitate spoilers. Aiello is very good but the other actors also give their all in this one, and Hatcher achieves the best role of her career. The dialogue is snappy. There are a number of comedic overtones, mostly from Aiello's character, like the pit bull's reaction to Dosmo's toupee falling from his head. In short, the movie is entertaining with a simple but satisfying ending.

just re-watched for the first time since it came out (well 6m later from blockbuster on VHS!) and every bit as much fun as the first time.Great performances (aah! teri! sigh. before she was a skellington covered in parchment) and a knowing wink at Hollywood mores. My lad said, "everyone's bad in this!" the perspective of time puts to rest the PF comparison, love both but there's a diff between wry and smart-arsed pleased with yourself humour.and delighted that the thread is still active !! not a masterpiece but a little gem

"Two Days in the Valley" is an example of what has become known as "hyperlink cinema", the sort of film which involves several parallel, overlapping story lines. Films of this sort have become popular in the last few years, "Crash", "Babel" and Syriana" all being well-known examples. The introductory storyline involves two hit men, Lee Woods and Dosmo Pizzo, who kill a man named Roy Foxx while he lies in bed with his ex-wife, Becky, a former skiing champion. Woods then betrays Pizzo, shooting him and blowing up their car in order to set him up as the fall guy. Woods's plan misfires, however, and Pizzo survives, albeit injured. Gradually, more and more people become involved in the saga, starting with Woods's glamorous Norwegian girlfriend Helga and Allan Hopper, an art dealer, in whose house Pizzo seeks shelter. Others include Hopper's assistant Susan, his sister Audrey, a nurse, the two police officers to whom Becky reports the killing, and Teddy Peppers, a once-successful film producer now down on his luck and contemplating suicide.Teri Hatcher's performance as Becky earned her a nomination for Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst Supporting Actress". Whether that was fair or not is difficult to say, as I have never seen any other of the other nominated performances for that year, but this film did strengthen my general impression that Hatcher is an actress more at home on television than in the cinema. There were, however, a number of better acting contributions, notably from Danny Aiello as Pizzo, surprisingly sympathetic for a man whose occupation is killing people, Greg Cruttwell as the irascible Hopper, James Spader as the ruthless Woods, whose failure to finish off Pizzo shows that "ruthless" and "efficient" are not necessarily synonyms, and Jeff Daniels and Eric Stoltz as the two cops, Alvin Strayer and Wes Taylor. The two, who are not homicide detectives but vice cops who just happen to be in the area, have sharply contrasting characters. Alvin, the older of the two, is obsessed with driving all prostitutes out of the area, especially Asian immigrants, of whom he has a particular dislike. The young rookie Wes, by contrast, is more concerned with getting out of the vice squad and into homicide, and although Alvin berates him for his lack of knowledge of elementary police procedures it is Wes who comes up with the vital insight into the crime, namely that Becky might know more than she is telling. Charlize Theron, in her first major screen role, looks absolutely stunning as Helga.Despite its ostensibly serious subject-matter, the film never really feels like a traditional crime thriller. Although it revolves around a murder, it has more of the feel of a black comedy, not so much in the sense that it is played for laughs but rather in the sense that is played tongue in cheek. With its quirky, eccentric characters it betrays the influence of the films of Quentin Tarantino such as "Pulp Fiction". Black comedy can be something of an acquired taste, and is a difficult genre to get right, but director John Herzfeld does enough to keep the viewer's interest alive. "Two Days in the Valley" is not a great film, but it is refreshingly different enough from most run-of-the-mill Hollywood productions to make it worth watching. 6/10

Despite a jumbled plot and some throw away performances, "2 Days in the Valley" will keep first-time viewers involved if just for watching actors who wouldn't normally be in this kind of movie. The main problem is that writer and director John Herzfeld's career has been mainly concentrated on the small screen---and it shows. But that's not a total negative because he does have a gift for moving along a story. In "2 Days..." he certainly keeps the action and dialog flowing at a crisp rate. Unfortunately, the film tries to be both a tongue-in-cheek action film and a Black Comedy and wavers uncomfortably between the two genres.The plot revolves around a murder-for-hire to collect some life insurance money with James Spader playing the hit-man and Charlize Theron as his sexy accomplice. A naive (but beautiful) Teri Hatcher unwittingly aids and abets their plan and ends up the worst for it. Jeff Daniels steals the show as a disgruntled LA cop on the edge of losing his sanity while putting his young partner (Eric Stoltz) through the ringer. Glenne Headley and Marsha Mason, two fine and distinguished actresses, seem a bit lost in this film and neither of them have enough screen time to make a real impression. Danny Aiello and Paul Mazursky are also in the cast and both of them have worked with far better and more cohesive scripts. Louise Fletcher and Keith Carradine have all too brief cameo appearances and neither of them make much of a dent in the proceedings. Carradine is killed off so fast that he might not have collected a paycheck for his efforts. "2 Days in the Valley" will remind viewers a little bit of another film that tried to be too much; the 1985 John Landis film "Into the Night." Similar to that movie, "2 Days..." strays too far from a coherent story line and drifts off into too many directions at once. It won't ruin your evening, but it won't make it any better either.