Blind Horizon (2004)
Oh yes. It's bad. Val Kilmer wakes
up from a coma in a small border town and has amnesia.
If there's one thing more frightening than Kilmer's
acting, then it is Kilmer's acting unbridled by the
freedom of playing a blank character.
Of course, the egotist is stuck
in one of the worst pieces of krud I've seen for a
while. Here's how bad it is: Nurse Amy Smart smokes
cigarettes in a room where the patient is hooked up
to oxygen tanks. I shit you not. The morons that scripted
this crap... must be... well... morons. How fucking
stupid can you be? (A good question for whoever programmed
this at SXSW as well).
Director Michael Haussman has helmed
a lot of TV commericals and it shows. This is one
of those films where, in order to show that Kilmer's
amnesiac is remembering something, there are a lot
of quick-cuts of artsy, random images and loud music
suddenly thuds and eeks. It's the kind of stuff we've
seen a gazillion times. There is not one iota of creativity
in this dreck.
Kilmer wakes up in a sleepy border
town and suddenly starts telling everyone that the
president (of America, we presume) is going to be
assassinated. No one believes him, of course. The
local sheriff humors him though and they become somewhat
friendly. But when the president is rerouted while
in a motorcade through the sleepy little town and
the secret service comes to the sheriff for assistance,
do you think he somehow stops the motorcade? Of course
not. Why? We don't know. We are not privy to the conversation
between the sheriff and the secret service. Why? Because
this film was written by morons.
How talented people like Smart,
Sam Sheppard, (the late) Noble Willingham, Giancarlo
Espisito, Faye Dunaway and Leo Fitzpatrick (and untalented
people like Neve Campbell) ended up in this horrid
movie is anyone's guess. Maybe the producers are better
at blackmail then they are at picking scripts.
Notes:
Music by Machine Head.
There are clips from the 1969 Mexican
Wrestling Movie called "Santo frente a la muerte"
shown during a couple scenes.
Filmed in New Mexico.
The film has apparently been picked
up by Lion's Gate.
Viewed at SXSW
in Austin in March 2004 at the Paramount Theater.
Producers Todd Tooley and Heidi JoMarket introduced
the film. They told us that director Michael Haussman
couldn't come because he had a new baby but scripters
F. Paul Benz and Steve Tomlin were in the house and
would do a Q&A after the film. Tooley joked that he
and Market would be "next door getting a drink." Now
I know why.
