''Clay Pigeons'' is a 1998

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

film written by Matt Healy and directed by David Dobkin. The film stars

Joaquin Phoenix Joaquin Rafael Phoenix (; né Bottom; born October 28, 1974) is an American actor. He is known for playing dark and unconventional characters in independent films. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academ ...

Vince Vaughn Vincent Anthony Vaughn (born March 28, 1970) is an American actor. Vaughn began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 comedy-drama film '' Swingers''. He has appeared in ...

, 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

as Clay Bidwell *

as Lester Long * Janeane Garofalo as Dale Shelby *

Georgina Cates Georgina Elaine Cates (born Clare Elaine Woodgate; 14 January 1975) is an English film and television actress. Life and career Born Clare Elaine Woodgate in Colchester, Essex, Cates attended Colchester County High School for Girls and broke i ...

as Amanda *

Gregory Sporleder Gregory Sporleder (born April 14, 1964) is an American actor and filmmaker, notable for playing military men in films such as '' The Rock'', '' Black Hawk Down'' and ''Renaissance Man'', as well as Calvin Norris in the HBO series ''True Blood''. ...

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 Joseph David Reitman (born May 25, 1968) is an American actor, producer, director, and writer. Early life Joe Reitman grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, and majored in theatre at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, in order to pursue ...

as Glen

Production

''Clay Pigeons'' was developed under filmmakers Ridley and

Tony Scott Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was an English film director and producer. He was known for directing highly successful action and thriller films such as '' Top Gun'' (1986), '' Beverly Hills Cop II'' (1987), ''D ...

's company,

Scott Free Productions Scott Free Productions is an independent film and television production company founded in 1970 by filmmakers and brothers Ridley Scott and Tony Scott. They formed the feature film development company Percy Main Productions in 1980, naming th ...

. Vaughn has described his character, Lester, as "a guy who isn’t necessarily from the West — that’s just an image he’s created of himself. Whatever his reality is — being badly hurt by women or whatever — he’s made it over, taking bits and pieces of things he’s seen in movies. He sees his life as a strange Western movie, with himself as the hero. He thinks he’s 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

he murders He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

out in the end."

Reception

The film received mixed reviews. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

the film has an approval rating of 61% based on reviews from 54 critics with the consensus: "Joaquin Phoenix, Janeane Garofalo, and Vince Vaughn play for kills in this dark comedy, but the film's aim misses some of those ''Clay Pigeons''." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

the film has a score of 49/100 based on 26 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clay Pigeons 1998 films 1998 comedy films 1998 crime drama films 1998 directorial debut films 1998 independent films 1990s black comedy films 1990s crime drama films 1990s serial killer films American black comedy films American crime drama films American independent films American neo-noir films American serial killer films German black comedy films German crime drama films German independent films German neo-noir films German serial killer films English-language German films Films directed by David Dobkin Films set in Montana Films shot in California Films shot in Utah Scott Free Productions films Gramercy Pictures films PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films 1990s German films