Who's in It: Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse, Rory Culkin
The Basics: Norton is an antihero, a fish out of water, a person out of his mind, a cowboy stuck in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. He falls for a Valley Girl. She falls right back. Her father is justifiably concerned about this. Then Norton turns into Max Cady and Travis Bickle all at once.
What's the Deal? Hey, girls, check it out. Don't ever fall in love or express sexual desire, because if you do, then the guy of your affection will eventually try to destroy you and your family. You don't want that, do you? Now, giving the filmmaker the benefit of the doubt, that might not be the overt message of the movie, but it's at least one of them (also my personal favorite). Otherwise, it's just a movie about a crazy guy that's trying to be in a movie about the "Dislocation of the Western Archetype of the Loner."
Who's Good: Morse as the suspicious, angry dad; Wood as the conflicted teenage girl who can't figure out how to be the grown woman she's becoming; Culkin as the depressed little brother.
And That Leaves … Norton, being all Method-like and irritating. It's a drag when you can see the gears shifting in an actor's performance, when all you can think of is, "Wow, he sure is doing a lot of acting here." He and actors like Sean Penn are nothing if not actorly at all times.
About That Travis Bickle Reference I Made Earlier: There really is a scene in this movie in which Norton's modern cowboy character assumes the role of an Old West cowboy and does a little shootout and monologue in front of the mirror of the, yep, seedy motel room where he lives. Which makes young Wood the Cybil Shepherd and Jodie Foster characters rolled into one.