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ÿþ<titleÿþ>ÿþNew Socialist Magazine, Valley of the Smarm - Reviewÿþ</title>ÿþ

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ÿþ<bÿþ>ÿþValley of the Smarm

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by Mary Foxÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ

ÿþ<iÿþ>ÿþNew Socialist Magazine, November 1996ÿþ</i>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ

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ÿþ<fontÿþ ÿþsize="1"ÿþ>ÿþFilm Review: ÿþ<iÿþ>ÿþTwo Days in the Valleyÿþ</i>ÿþ. Directed and written by John Herzfeldÿþ</font>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ



No, this isn't a movie about coal miners in Wales. The "valley" refers to the San Fernando one outside L.A. and, this being the 90's, the movie is, of course, about hit men. Can anyone explain why 90's Hollywood has such a hard-on for hit men? I knew a guy in Parkdale who claimed he could have someone killed for 50 bucks but I always assumed he was kidding. Maybe not though. If movies these days are anything to go by, every third person you meet could be a paid assassin. 



ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ

Anyway, James Spader and Danny Aiello kill for a living. Spader, with his Aryan-boy good looks plays the cold, detached sadist; Aiello is the warm, effusive, loves to cook ethnic. (Is it possible for Hollywood to create an Italian-American character who doesn't give a shit about food or maybe just prefers South Indian take-out to pasta?) There's a slew of other characters as well whose lives, in relentlessly contrived ways, eventually intersect. 



ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ

There is also a plot in this movie, but its elaborateness doesn't make up for its fundamental lameness. The 2 Days ad campaign says it out pulps ÿþ<iÿþ>ÿþPulp Fictionÿþ</i>ÿþ though its pulpiness is more reminiscent of many B films from the '70s. Actually, not just B films, but B porn films, including the requisite "catfight" between two of the female characters. (And just like the 70's, the boys in the audience loved this scene - nothing titillates more than two beautiful girls beating each other up I guess.) 



ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ<brÿþ>ÿþ

The idiocy of the plot allows for a lot more of this movie's real point, namely smarmy, knowing sex and violence with a cheap porn sensibility. Now I'm a large fan of sex and violence and even cheap porn, but the director's insistent telegraphing of his hipness really got on my every last nerve after awhile. Filmically smirking your way through an hour and a half gets stale pretty fast. If you need some professional bad guys in your life, go rent ÿþ<iÿþ>ÿþReservoir Dogsÿþ</i>ÿþ. 



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