Don't read this until after you see the film!
The Minus Man explains what we so want to know about serial killers -- just what, exactly, is wrong with them.
The plot seems straight forward: A quietly pleasant young man, drives his pick-up into a small town, selectively poisoning others from a flask of Amaretto laced with extract of rare Pacific Northwest fungus. He makes friends with an older man, Doug (Brian Cox), rents a room from Doug and his wife (Mercedes Ruehl), gets a Post Office job, meets a girl (Janeane Garofalo) who likes him.
The drifter, Van, (Owen Wilson), is oblivious to his own murderous feelings. We know this because Van narrates the film. Superficially polite and caring, Van completely lacks empathy -- note his bizarre behavior as a postal carrier.
This film is a working demonstration of deep psychological malfunctions: splitting, (unconsciously denying hatred/rage/anger to protect the good), and projective identification (unconsciously making the other feel what you can't allow in yourself).
When romantic love comes toward Van, he can tolerate only so much before hatred takes over. His would be girlfriend, Ferrin, a winning young, soon-to-be alcoholic from the Post Office, escapes Van's poisonous impulses because she is vigilant about what happens to her whiskey bottle. Van is invited to embrace Ferrin, and botches the attempt when he quakes with rage.
Ordinarily Van doesn't appear to have negative emotions, like, say, jealousy. Except Van calmly murders the local football star after seeing his new friend Doug fawn on the boy at a sports dinner.
Meanwhile, mounting deaths have attracted the interest of authorities. Van has to cool it. Without his usual outlet of murders, Van's splitting stops working. He begins to project his hatred into two imaginary detectives,(Dwight Yoakam & Dennis Haysbert), both harassing him. These fantasies are Van trying to blow off emotional steam until he can kill again.
Doug begins as an ordinary nice guy, the more time he spends in Van's company, the more rage and chaos Doug experiences. In the spiraling second half, Doug is arrested, a psychotic who has killed his wife. The minus in this equation is Van, of course.
The discrepancy between Owen Wilson's considerable personnel charm and Van's fractured interior is revealed when external events in the movie are increasingly infused with loss, alienation, emotional torture, and devastation. Then Van, no different from when he arrived, drives off into the darkness (get it?) with the poison securely attached to the underside of his pickup truck.
The Minus Man explains what we so want to know about serial killers -- just what, exactly, is wrong with them.
The plot seems straight forward: A quietly pleasant young man, drives his pick-up into a small town, selectively poisoning others from a flask of Amaretto laced with extract of rare Pacific Northwest fungus. He makes friends with an older man, Doug (Brian Cox), rents a room from Doug and his wife (Mercedes Ruehl), gets a Post Office job, meets a girl (Janeane Garofalo) who likes him.
The drifter, Van, (Owen Wilson), is oblivious to his own murderous feelings. We know this because Van narrates the film. Superficially polite and caring, Van completely lacks empathy -- note his bizarre behavior as a postal carrier.
This film is a working demonstration of deep psychological malfunctions: splitting, (unconsciously denying hatred/rage/anger to protect the good), and projective identification (unconsciously making the other feel what you can't allow in yourself).
When romantic love comes toward Van, he can tolerate only so much before hatred takes over. His would be girlfriend, Ferrin, a winning young, soon-to-be alcoholic from the Post Office, escapes Van's poisonous impulses because she is vigilant about what happens to her whiskey bottle. Van is invited to embrace Ferrin, and botches the attempt when he quakes with rage.
Ordinarily Van doesn't appear to have negative emotions, like, say, jealousy. Except Van calmly murders the local football star after seeing his new friend Doug fawn on the boy at a sports dinner.
Meanwhile, mounting deaths have attracted the interest of authorities. Van has to cool it. Without his usual outlet of murders, Van's splitting stops working. He begins to project his hatred into two imaginary detectives,(Dwight Yoakam & Dennis Haysbert), both harassing him. These fantasies are Van trying to blow off emotional steam until he can kill again.
Doug begins as an ordinary nice guy, the more time he spends in Van's company, the more rage and chaos Doug experiences. In the spiraling second half, Doug is arrested, a psychotic who has killed his wife. The minus in this equation is Van, of course.
The discrepancy between Owen Wilson's considerable personnel charm and Van's fractured interior is revealed when external events in the movie are increasingly infused with loss, alienation, emotional torture, and devastation. Then Van, no different from when he arrived, drives off into the darkness (get it?) with the poison securely attached to the underside of his pickup truck.