Even though you can see through to the brilliant ambition of the project and the underlying genius, you can’t get away from the fact that it just doesn’t all hang together well as a film. David Lynch knows what he’s doing with films like Mulholland Dr. but perhaps Richard Kelly wasn’t quite ready to do something like this. However there’s still so much to like about it: Moby’s score and the great use of music, the pervading dark sense of humour, the inspired casting. I imagine that even the casting choices were part of the message of the film. Sarah Michelle Gellar playing a porn star is one of my favourite things ever in cinematic history!

Southland Tales wasn’t quite the follow-up to Donnie Darko that most of us were expecting but I’m sure that Richard Kelly still has a big future and I look forward to whatever else he comes up with. 5 crumbs out of 10.

Seriously! WTF???

This gets 5 crumbs out of 10 from me but only because I could probably watch it nine times and give it nine different ratings from 1 to 9, so an average of 5 is fine with me.