The Salton Sea is right out of the Quentin Tarantino mold, or at least it tries to be. With Val Kilmer playing the lead role of Danny Parker/Tom Van Allen amid a handful of seedy, underground misfits, we are left to peace together this movie that is basically a Crime Mystery. It's not giving anything away when you see that Doug Hutchison is playing one of the cops that Danny answers too. When you cast Doug as a Cop, you immediately know that he is playing a 'Bad Cop'. The question becomes, what makes him a bad cop and what's his connection to Danny? With the odd cast of characters to keep you busy and engaged during some of their outlandish scenarios, we are pretty much left in the dark for a full hour before the 'hook' or driving force of Danny is revealed. From here it heads straight into revenge mode and how everything prior is the set up.

I get why some people are frustrated with the plot and the pacing of the movie. But if you stick with it, it does have a good payoff at the end....to some degree. I think the main arc does give the viewer some satisfaction. It's just the minor subplot involving his neighbor Colette (Deborah Kara Unger) and her boyfriend Quincy (Luis Guzman) that leaves you scratching your head. There is no resolution there, which is somewhat disappointing. This is definitely worth a Rent if you are like me and enjoy the Crime Genre. If that's not enough to get you to check it out, then you definitely don't wanna miss Vincent D'Onofrio performance as Pooh-Bear. You've never seen him in anything quite like this role.