Wonderland
Only a film school graduate could think up the unholy fusion of ''Rashomon,'' the fallen-star carnage of ''Auto Focus,'' and the final scenes of ''Boogie Nights'' that opens in theaters today under the title ''Wonderland.'' And only a film school graduate could direct it to within an inch of his life and think that in itself might lend it meaning.
''Wonderland'' is the story of the July 1, 1981 murders on Wonderland Ave. in LA's Hollywood Hills, which many considered the city's grisliest mass slaying since Charles Manson and his merry crew went on their spree. The four victims were part of an unsavory gang of druggies and thieves, the killers were most likely in the employ of a nightclub owner whom the group had made the mistake of ripping off, and the wild card was one John Holmes, better known by his nom de porn, Johnny Wadd.
What did Johnny do and when did he do it? These are the questions director James Cox (NYU, 1998) seeks to resolve, and if you find yourself not particularly caring about the answer, then you've put your finger on the big, honking hole at the center of ''Wonderland.''
The film, it should be noted, is not about the porn industry. By the time we meet him, Holmes (Val Kilmer) has smoked his celebrity right down to the filter -- he's a has-been addict who uses the remnants of fame to hang with the bad boys and score coke. ''Wanna see it?'' says vicious top dog Ron Launius (Josh Lucas) to a party girl about Holmes's chief claim to stardom. Wonderland Avenue's desperately grinning court jester has no choice but to unzip.
Cox tells his sordid tale from three points of view, all unreliable and all but one heard by the two cops (Ted Levine and Franky G.) on the case.
David Lind (Dylan McDermott, in a laughably fake bad-ass-biker wig) is the one key member of the Wonderland gang who had the luck to be elsewhere that night, and his story of the robbery of Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian) and the ensuing bloody payback recuses himself and implicates Holmes. Holmes is then picked up for questioning and, again, his version of events makes the narrator look like a tarnished angel. Finally, we plunge into the hospital-bed memories of the slaughter's one survivor (Christina Applegate), where the truth -- if that's what it is -- looks more complex.
The cast is full of such slumming talents. Actor-director Tim Blake Nelson plays one of the thugs, sweet-faced Kate Bosworth is Johnny's teenage girlfriend Dawn, Janeane Garofalo can be briefly glimpsed as a cokehead, and an unrecognizably hefty Carrie Fisher shows up as a holy-roller. Lisa Kudrow plays Holmes's prim, estranged wife -- poor thing, she has to contend with lines like ''You remember that day, 15 years ago, when you were measuring yourself in the bathroom?''
It's Kilmer's show, though, even if Lucas almost steals it as the group's psychotic good-time-Charlie. Johnny's a loser in every sense, but he's still got burnout charm to spare, and Kilmer gets both the live-for-the-moment raffishness and the emptiness that comes from lying to yourself and everyone around you.
''Wonderland'' is directed -- over-directed -- with high style. Colors bleed in and out, the camera snakes through scenes as if it's on loan from the set of ''Goodfellas,'' and the murder scenes, when they come, have a ferocious, leaping animal urgency.
The soundtrack is a choice collection of punk-pop nuggets, too. (Roxy Music's ''In Every Dream Home a Heartache,'' The Stooges' ''Search and Destroy,'' and Gordon Lightfoot's ''If You Could Read My Mind''? I'd buy that CD.)
None of which dispels the sense that the whole thing has been filmed through the bottom of an ashtray. ''Wonderland'' skips lightly along the sewers of human depravity as if the trip alone was worth the telling.
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