Clay Pigeons

A request that was well worth watching.

This was weird. Not to say at all I didn't like it, I just knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. It's been a hot minute since I've seen a movie cement a tone so solidly and quickly in just the opening scene and it actually is a movie up my alley, weird and funny but dark. So our story goes that an average mechanic named Clay while out with his buddy, doing the most sensible thing imaginable, drinking beers and shooting shit when things go bonkers and his friend offs himself which starts a bad trend as several close people to Clay start dying and in the meantime he meets this delightfully bizzare guy named Lester who he forms an unsual friendship with. Things get so bad the FBI get called in and the stakes rise from there as Clay tries to prove he had nothing to do with the killings and find the real culprit. I probably had the dumbest smile on my face throughout this movie cause it's just such a weird, odd, off center movie but that's genuinely the strong point. Now the actors are pretty solid, Joaquin Phoenix class act as ever, Vince Vaughn who I'm not super keen on might have delivered my favorite performance of his career I mean this guy. Let me tell you about dis guy, he is un-f***ing-believable but he can come off very down to earth and likable. Last but not least we got Janeane Garoffalo, who is undoubtedly the straightfaced normal character but she might have made me laugh the most, she's just so not here to put up with people's bullshit, and shawty I love you for it. In terms of direction, it's not super striking or memorable albeit you get some quite lovely wide shots of the mountain ranges around the town, but neither is it at all bad. The director knows how to make the script leap off the page and delivers a memorable and severely off movie that is fun and very engaging to watch. And of course I gotta bring it up...because it's true, but guys the Hannibal vibes were off the charts here. Like, if you want a cliffnotes version of almost the whole show of Hannibal watch this movie. Possible gay bromance, murder, protagonist gets locked up but soon chases the villain, you got the FBI involved, there's a fair bit of will our hero run off with our villain or apprehend him for the authorities, I mean if Bryan Fuller didn't take some notes off this movie for his show I'll be damned surprised cause that is a coincidence unlike any I've encountered. Tangent over, go watch it. 3.5 stars, 7.5/10!