Kalifornia is a film that tried to be more than it really was. Starring a very young, very up and coming Brad Pitt, Kalifornia follows a pair of couples trying to find their way across the country to California. Early (Brad Pitt) and Adele (Juliette Lewis) are a pair on the run from the law. Brian (David Duchovny) and Carrie (Michelle Forbes) are a couple trying to finish up the beginning of a career. Brian’s writing a book about serial killers and is attempting to make his way across the country with Carrie (who is photographing for Brian) stopping at locations where serial killings occurred. Regretfully, what starts as a killing to get away erupts into a spree of killing for survival and then for pleasure for Early. The combination of couples brings Brian closer to his story than he wants thanks to serial killing tendencies from Early.
I’m not sure what this movie was trying to do. It really wanted to be driven by character development; mainly Brad Pitt’s performance as Early. What it turned into was a tug-of-war between plots. One side really wanted to show how a serial killer developed and what drove them. The other side wanted to show Brad Pitt’s worst character doing some of the worst things. Both sides simply didn’t gel together well. One of the biggest problems with Kalifornia is that it didn’t have any real motivation to make Pitt’s Early need to go that extra mile to kill. Sure it tried to cop out with setting up early dialogue from Brian explaining the tendencies of a serial killer. Sure it tried to show Pitt’s Early having a hard time in life, but it started failing at this point. Early’s situation wasn’t fully explained; his character wasn’t fully developed before dispatched into this created world. Once Early wasn’t established nothing else could be very believable. It was literally the moment where I disconnected from the film. The film moved too fast for the character to develop and it just didn’t work by then end.
I can respect what was attempted with this film. I understand the dark undertones of the differing couples. I also understand the small pieces that Early went through to have him reach the ‘serial killer’ level. The pieces were all there, but they just didn’t connect. Director Dominic Sena did his best with what he had and, in my opinion, it just wasn’t enough.
This is just one man’s opinion and you should make your own judgment on the film.
Moving along to the Blu-ray portion of the movie you’re getting some really gorgeous video! While re-releases tend to have a ‘rush’ feeling towards them it does seem like MGM/Fox put some great effort into making Kalifornia shine. I know there’s a cult following to the film and I’m glad that the studio is aware of that as well. For example, there’s a scene where the couples stop at a diner. On the outside you’ve got this aquamarine color that looks positively gorgeous. You’ve got some great details in this film without much graininess. Having seen this on both a 1080p and 720p screen I can say that they did a great job in the transfer.
As for the features, you get the unrated and theatrical version of the film. There isn’t much else, regretfully.