Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1998


Clay Pigeons

Buy Clay Pigeons now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'Clay Pigeons' is a 1998 black comedy film written by Matt Healy and directed by David Dobkin. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn, and Janeane Garofalo.

It is the second film on-screen collaboration between Vaughn and Phoenix, the first film being 'Return to Paradise', released in the same year.

Plot



Clay Bidwell, a young man living in Montana, witnesses his friend Earl kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the Earl's adulterous wife Amanda. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists Amanda's advances when she presses him to continue with their affair as if nothing has happened.

After a jealous Amanda kills a waitress Clay briefly dates, he inadvertently befriends Lester Long, who happens to be a serial killer. Lester murders the nagging Amanda in an attempt to "help" his "fishing buddy", leaving Clay horrified. Soon enough, FBI agent Dale Shelby and her partner Reynard come to town and zero in on Clay as the prime suspect.

Cast



* Joaquin Phoenix as Clay Bidwell

* Vince Vaughn as Lester Long

* Janeane Garofalo as Dale Shelby

* Georgina Cates as Amanda

* Gregory Sporleder as Earl

* Phil Morris as Agent Reynard

* Scott Wilson as Sheriff Dan Mooney

* Vince Vieluf as Deputy Barney

* Nikki Arlyn as Gloria Collins

* Joseph D. Reitman as Glen

Production



'Clay Pigeons' was developed under filmmakers Ridley and Tony Scott's company, Scott Free Productions.

Vaughn has described his character, Lester, as "a guy who isnt necessarily from the West thats just an image hes created of himself. Whatever his reality is being badly hurt by women or whatever hes made it over, taking bits and pieces of things hes seen in movies. He sees his life as a strange Western movie, with himself as the hero. He thinks hes a sane person in an insane world."

Dobkin said of the characters, "I wanted everyone to be different than what they appear to be the FBI agent who smokes pot, the small town sheriff who seems slow but is the one who figures [the murders] out in the end."

Reception



The film received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 61% based on reviews from 54 critics. On Metacritic the film has a score of 49/100 based on 26 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References




Buy Clay Pigeons now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 1998



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1107104331.