Charlize Theron’s Debut hits with an Impressive Cast, ‘90s Style
DIRECTED BY JOHN HERZFELD/1996
BLU-RAY STREET DATE: NOVEMBER 14, 2023/KL STUDIO CLASSICS
Y’know, this movie isn’t bad. Arriving darn near two years to the week after the U.S. release of the game-changing Pulp Fiction did it no favors, as 2 Days in the Valley was hastily disregarded by many as yet another in a looooong deluge of Tarantino wannabe movies. It was easy to see it that way at that time. Written and directed by John Herzfeld (15 Minutes), it’s an L.A. film with violent hitmen and chatty characters whose paths inevitably cross. Sound familiar?
Revisiting it now, however, 2 Days in the Valley simply plays like an above-average ‘90s movie. While it was likely greenlit thanks to its similarities to Pulp Fiction, and perhaps even somewhat inspired by it (back then, what wasn’t?), Herzfeld’s film has more than enough agency to justify itself.
For one thing, it’s the movie that gave us Charlize Theron. Untested and zipped into a form fitting white jumpsuit, Theron plays her evil moll with maximum neo-noir femme fatale allure. In a cast bursting with established talent, the screenplay asks the most of newcomer Theron, with a major knockdown drag-out fight scene (against Teri Hatcher), a revealing, smoldering sex scene, and [SPOILER ALERT! for this twenty-eight-year-old potboiler] a death scene. Coupled with a sadistic killer played by James Spader, the two make quite the lethal pair. Together, they scheme and terrorize the San Fernando Valley.
And then there’s the rest of the cast… Eric Stoltz is a naïve young cop; Jeff Daniels is his jaded racist partner. A tough day of staking out massage parlors funnels them into the home of Spader’s latest messed-up murder victim, Hatcher’s husband (Peter Horton). Danny Aiello’s east coast criminal finds Spader’s methods sick and twisted, but he’s already along for the ride. But wait-! Spader shoots him dead.
Or does he? A hostage scheme ensues with a wealthy art dealer (Greg Cruttwell) and his assistant (Glenne Headly) being held captive at his eccentric home. Earlier in the film, we witness a personable nurse (Marsha Mason) drive off with a mortally depressed washed up movie maker (Paul Mazursky) whom she bonded with at a cemetery after he unsuccessfully tried to give her his beloved little dog so that he could kill himself in good consciousness. Because this is one of those movies, it turns out that the nurse is the art dealer’s assistant’s sister, and is called to the house. Soon enough, they too are caught up in the hostage situation. You know, intersecting destinies and all…
Call it contrived, but back when this movie came out, audiences couldn’t get enough of such randomly colliding narratives. Not everything that’s set up pays off (Jeff Daniels’ character is dropped so fast that one wonders if the actor didn’t get a better offer and had to split), but various performances have stood the test of time. Mazursky’s downtrodden filmmaker has stuck with me since my initial viewing all those years ago. To only slightly lesser degrees, the same is true of Mason, Aiello, and Spader. And of course, who could forget Theron in this movie?
Lots of extras on this Blu-ray. Far more than your typical KL Studio Classics outing. Even the other “special edition”-branded releases rarely approach this level of clickable bulletpoints. Writer/Director John Herzfeld went all in on this disc, contributing a snappy new audio commentary track and a video conversation with his longtime pal, Sylvester Stallone (35:04). Aside from gamely taking part in the relaxed, open chat with Herzfeld (each in an elaborate swivel chair stationed beneath an enormous photograph of Charlize Theron as she appears in the movie), Stallone had nothing to do with 2 Days in the Valley. His fans, though, may just come away with some new details about the star, as the talk ends up being as much about him as Herzfeld. It’s an excellent and often fascinating supplement.
Perhaps a little ricketier if only due to its now-defunct and culturally cancelled venue is the video of a Q&A reunion at Cinefamily. Obviously held several years ago, the panel includes actors Charlize Theron and Glenne Headly, writer/director John Herzfeld, and production designer (and now director) Catherine Hardwicke. Theron gets the lion’s share of the focus, as she was, by that time, the most famous person on that panel.
The list of bonus features goes on…. The seven-minute short archival promo The Making of 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY is here, as are seven more minutes of “Archival B-Rolls”, which is several behind-the-scenes clips of the film’s finale. From also back in the day we’re treated to seventeen minutes of select actors commenting about the project while on set. (Aiello doesn’t seem to understand where he is. “I don’t know anything about ‘the valley’!”) Top it off with the old theatrical trailer and wrap it up in a slipcover with handsome newly-commissioned art by John Rivoli, and we’ve got quite the package.
If associating with Pulp Fiction helped Herzfeld get his movie made at that particular moment, then more power to him. Of the many Pulp Fiction derivatives that sauntered onto screens in the mid-‘90s, 2 Days is one of very few that understood that it’s the characters’ believable personalities, not how “cool” they are or how many pop culture references they can spout, that makes them engaging in their knotty situations. Herzfeld’s film may be far from perfect (oh, that impossible standard…), but it’s good and twisty where it counts, and all these years later, certain characters linger fully formed in my memory. Not bad. Not bad at all.