WARNING: BIG SPOILERS.
Floundering is an obvious attempt by its director to both make his mark on the then-burgeoning Indie scene and make a Big Statement about the World, using Los Angeles as its synecdoche. It alternates between clever, brilliant, cloying, oppressively politically correct and/or strident, and painfully sophomoric. It is fun to watch, though ultimately as much as a train wreck than anything else.
The film concerns a character named apparently named John Boy, who drifts through a series of bizarre events, Candide-style, and makes wry philosophical observations about life and the state of the political world (LA in particular, and by extension, the USA) along the way. John is an interesting, flawed character, and his interactions with the people around him reveal both the craziness of the world and John's own flaws and foibles (his narcissism, for a start). There are clever little moments, dream sequences, odd little bits that seem improvised, all in this weird mix.
At about ¾ of the way through, I still felt I was watching a pretty good, if strongly flawed, movie. But then things take a turn toward hackneyed Hollywood cliché, and probably in an attempt at parody, but, if so, it's carried out so ineptly that it's impossible to tell. Additionally, the political views of the film seem to devolve until a combination of grumblings of "revolution" and a bone-stupid subplot involving perhaps the most thinly-disguised character in film history, "Merril Fence" (for those too young to remember 1992, he's supposed to be Daryl Gates nudge, nudge, wink, wink) pretty much swallows the film whole and craps it out, and what's left is crap.
The film is loaded, by the way with (a) some surprising cameos (John Cusack, Ethan Hawke), (b) lots of "before-they-were-famous" appearances (Viggo Morgensen, Billy Bob Thornton), and, for obvious reasons of tribute, the film is absolutely loaded with (c) references with Alex Cox's 1980's cult masterpiece, Repo Man, from which it also borrows some of its attitude, the rest of which it cops from Spike Lee's early films and Richard Linklater's Slacker.
Floundering ends with a one-two punch of feel-good poli-cor schmaltz, followed by absolutely the worst rendition of an New Wave pop song from the 80's you have ever heard, or will ever hear, by what one can only hope is an ad hoc folk duo, whom are suddenly joined by pretty much the entire cast of the movie. They might have well have just raised a white flag reading "WTF?". Still not as bad as Troll 2.
Floundering is an obvious attempt by its director to both make his mark on the then-burgeoning Indie scene and make a Big Statement about the World, using Los Angeles as its synecdoche. It alternates between clever, brilliant, cloying, oppressively politically correct and/or strident, and painfully sophomoric. It is fun to watch, though ultimately as much as a train wreck than anything else.
The film concerns a character named apparently named John Boy, who drifts through a series of bizarre events, Candide-style, and makes wry philosophical observations about life and the state of the political world (LA in particular, and by extension, the USA) along the way. John is an interesting, flawed character, and his interactions with the people around him reveal both the craziness of the world and John's own flaws and foibles (his narcissism, for a start). There are clever little moments, dream sequences, odd little bits that seem improvised, all in this weird mix.
At about ¾ of the way through, I still felt I was watching a pretty good, if strongly flawed, movie. But then things take a turn toward hackneyed Hollywood cliché, and probably in an attempt at parody, but, if so, it's carried out so ineptly that it's impossible to tell. Additionally, the political views of the film seem to devolve until a combination of grumblings of "revolution" and a bone-stupid subplot involving perhaps the most thinly-disguised character in film history, "Merril Fence" (for those too young to remember 1992, he's supposed to be Daryl Gates nudge, nudge, wink, wink) pretty much swallows the film whole and craps it out, and what's left is crap.
The film is loaded, by the way with (a) some surprising cameos (John Cusack, Ethan Hawke), (b) lots of "before-they-were-famous" appearances (Viggo Morgensen, Billy Bob Thornton), and, for obvious reasons of tribute, the film is absolutely loaded with (c) references with Alex Cox's 1980's cult masterpiece, Repo Man, from which it also borrows some of its attitude, the rest of which it cops from Spike Lee's early films and Richard Linklater's Slacker.
Floundering ends with a one-two punch of feel-good poli-cor schmaltz, followed by absolutely the worst rendition of an New Wave pop song from the 80's you have ever heard, or will ever hear, by what one can only hope is an ad hoc folk duo, whom are suddenly joined by pretty much the entire cast of the movie. They might have well have just raised a white flag reading "WTF?". Still not as bad as Troll 2.