Inherent Vice, as reviewed by The Filthy Critic

Inherent Vice, as reviewed by The Filthy Critic

"He's made a detective noir so opaque and so weird that I have no fucking clue if it's any good. I mean, I liked a lot of it, as pieces. It's a brilliant mood and period piece, full of stoner canyon-living atmosphere and a foggy fidelity to the tenets of Chandler and Hammett. But, in whole, Inherent Vice is a whole lot of 'What the fuck was that?' It's a joke, played on us. It's an atmosphere masquerading as a plot, like the most expensive and elaborate DVD of logs burning in a fireplace you'll ever see. Except instead of logs, it's the sun setting off the coast of Carpinteria, the faint whiff of pot smoked a week ago and a cheap Mexican burro blanket. It's not bad, but it's still more fun to watch a story than to watch a man tell you you're not watching one."