INHERENT VICE is a hipper doper noir with a variety of eccentric characters and a stylized 1970s Los Angeles in what is one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s best films.   The only problem with the movie is that it is 10 to 20 minutes too long.  It starts with private eye Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix looking different from his last role) when he is visited by his ex-old lady Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) who wants him to investigate a scheme to commit rich eccentric real estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), but it gets more complicated when he is found by the dead body of Glen Charlock (someone another client wants Doc to look up due to money owed).   It is an interconnected story based on the Thomas Pynchon novel which has hot young women, brutal cops like detective “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a massage parlor which is a cover for an illegal brothel, and a drug syndicate called the Golden Fang.  Also wrapped up in this plot is police informant/ sax player Coy Harligen (Owen Wilson) which everyone thinks is dead.   Doc hunts for the truth when Mickey Wolfmann goes missing as he navigates various places including a dentist’s office and a mental asylum.  INHERENT VICE is also a character study of Doc’s past and his relationships with the various characters he interacts with.    Bigfoot has a love/ hate relationship when it comes to Doc while Shasta is using him as he is still hung up on her a little from their short time together years ago. The female narrator of the story is like Paul Thomas Anderson’s hippie culture version of a free flow narrator like you would see in a Terrance Malick film.   INHERENT VICE is the type of film for film noir fans and those who dig the counter culture of the 1960s (or remember growing up during those times).

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The only extras are movie trailers/ short films which include deleted scenes and shots:

LOS PARANOIAS/ SHASTA FAY/ THE GOLDEN FANG/ EVERYTHING IN THIS DREAM

The blu-ray is part of a combo pack which includes the movie in standard definition on DVD and a code to download and/ or stream a digital HD ultraviolet copy of the movie.

FINAL ANALYSIS:  INHERENT VICE is a quirky hippie stoner/ doper film noir that some fans will love like I did, but the pacing was a little off and the movie could have been a little shorter for the better.

This review is ©4-29-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

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