The Salton Sea 2002

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: Has all the scenic appeal of a cesspool. Read more

Sam Allis, Boston Globe: If there's no art here, it's still a good yarn -- which is nothing to sneeze at these days. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Fans of the off-beat, your movie has arrived. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: As convoluted in its own way as Memento, and almost as sardonically funny. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Great supporting performances and a really good script. Read more

Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune: Sacrificing content for style, Caruso gives us a lot to look at but little to ponder. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The movie's accumulated force still feels like an ugly knot tightening in your stomach. But is that knot from dramatic tension or a symptom of artistic malnutrition? Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: An empty, ugly exercise in druggy trance-noir and trumped-up street credibility. Read more

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: It's difficult to convey how pleased with itself this film is to be inside what it presents as the daring, fascinating world of 'tweakers.' Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Repellent yet intriguing, brutal yet funny, wicked yet strangely compassionate, The Salton Sea is more about mixing genres and styles than illuminating a credible reality. Read more

Paul Tatara, CNN.com: If you're determined to see this one, don't forget to bring a soapy washcloth. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: For what it is, it's well-done -- a stylized-beyond-reality derivation of Natural Born Killers, perhaps. Or a more gonzo version of Go or Blow. But the heart has been stylized out of it. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: What we see in The Salton Sea, meanwhile, is a twisty, showy, atmosphere-saturated drama that revels (in a post-post-Tarantino- and-Trainspotting way) in sadism and in-your-face seediness -- and attracts a cast of coolios primed to play extreme. Read more

Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail: If you are into splatter movies, then you will probably have a reasonably good time with The Salton Sea. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: By and large this is Mr. Kilmer's movie, and it's his strongest performance since The Doors. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A thriller with an edge -- which is to say that it doesn't follow the stale, standard, connect-the-dots storyline which has become commonplace in movies that explore the seamy underbelly of the criminal world. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I liked it because it was so endlessly, grotesquely, inventive. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: There isn't a single original or involving moment in The Salton Sea. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: All the movie's narrative gymnastics can't disguise the fact that it's inauthentic at its core and that its story just isn't worth telling. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Eccentric enough to stave off doldrums, Caruso's self-conscious debut is also eminently forgettable. Read more