Midland City is a perfectly ordinary American city. Within the confines of this small world, dealership owner Dwayne Hoover is a celebrity despite the fact that his wealth and success has only served to make him more and more unstable and unhappy. His wife is suicidal and his secretary offers limited relief in their affair. Not that many others have it better. Harry Le Sabre is his sales manager and is full of guilt over his cross dressing and active sex life. With this community breaking down, small time porno-mag article contributor Kilgore Trout makes his way to the city to take his place as the guest of honour at the arts fest not quite sure how anyone has heard of him.
Another commentator on this site has said that if you showed this film to ten people then probably eight would hate it; those praising it have claimed it to be a wonderful version of Vonnegut's novel. Not having read this, I can believe that he (and this) is an acquired taste because I found it to be an almost unbearably messy affair that was delivered in a silly manner that offered little of interest. Indeed for much of the film I wasn't sure what to make of it. Perhaps it tried to do too much but there seemed to be so many characters rammed in here that most of them just seemed out of place and with no development whatsoever. Of course it didn't help that I didn't see much about those given plenty of time either. Dwayne himself is the perfect example of this; his madness seems to have a reason but the film does a terrible job in bringing this out.
Rudolph seems passionate in his direction but it seems he is too close to the material and his direction might assume a familiarisation with the material that the mass audience will not have. The delivery is too silly and knowingly manic it takes away from the material and it left me feeling like perhaps it was my fault for not having read the story before watching it. It annoyed me as well that such a starry cast were mostly wasted presumably they saw something in the material that did not make it to the screen. Willis tries hard but is not supported at all. Finney spends most of the time in his own film, not really fitting into the narrative. Nolte is amusing; Hershey is wasted; Epps has been told something by the director that the rest of us aren't let into. Patton, Wilson, Haas, Lewis and others provide thankless supports.
This may well be perfect for fans of Vonnegut, I cannot say but suffice to say that I am not one of them. However for the casual viewer this is messy, disjointed and pointless to the point of being painful. I gave it two hours as I tried to work it out, hoping that it would make something out of itself but in the end I was left out of pocket with nothing to show for my investment.
