It's the tail end of the psychedelic '60s, paranoia is running the day, and Doc knows that "love" is another one of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," that's being way too overused, except this one usually leads to trouble. When private eye Doc Sportello's (Joaquin Phoenix) ex-old lady, Shasta (Katherine Waterston), suddenly shows up with a story about her current billionaire land developer boyfriend (whom she just happens to be in love with) and a plot by his wife and her boyfriend to kidnap that billionaire and throw him in a loony bin. "Was it possible that at every gathering, concert, peace rally, love-in, be-in, freak-in, here up north, back east, where ever, some dark crews had been busy all along reclaiming the music, the resistance to power, the sexual desire from epic to everyday? All they could sweep up for the ancient forces of greed and fear? Gee he thought, I don't know." You thought The Master was divisive? You ain't seen nothin' yet. And still Anderson presses the advantage, challenging, cultivating, ducking and weaving, inviting his audience in once, twice, again and again, spinning them in circles before asking 'em to walk a straight line. You'll almost certainly need to commit to more than one viewing, if only to better track what the hell is going on. Motives criss-cross, double-cross and triple-cross three times over. It runs away and races back, whispers something incoherent in your ear, mutters a joke, nabs a laugh, then lurches forward again with an inebriated, at-times infuriating, at-times mesmerizing cadence. It rambles, mumbles, wobbles, sighs, blows smoke, narrates hypnotically then sits idly by, and above all refuses to give chase. Your full attention above all, much as it seems that's the last thing it's asking for. Based on the 2007 novel of the same name by wildly elusive author Thomas Pynchon, the subversively funky, drug-addled counter-noir makes no demands yet demands everything. Inherent Vice teases viewers with an informal, burnt out indifference but it might just be writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's least accessible film to date. Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, April 19, 2015 "One toke over the line, sweet Jesus, one toke over the line."
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