Legends of the porn industry

Wonderland

Starring Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, Lisa Kudrow

Directed by…

Wonderland

Starring Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, Lisa Kudrow

Directed by James Cox

“Wonderland” is not as concerned with its central character, porn star John Holmes (Val Kilmer), as it is with being a shifty, gritty crime drama/detective story. This is despite the fact that the film’s prologue proclaims it the story of what happened to Holmes once “the legend” – he starred in 1,000 films, gained worldwide notoriety and slept with 14,000 women – was over.

The problem is, the subject matter is wholly unappealing, the characters unlikable, the pace grinding, and the style muddled.

The whole time, I couldn’t stop thinking, “Boogie Nights” – a film that borrowed from Holmes’ story – did this better in a single scene.

The title is a reference to Wonderland Avenue, the scene of some grisly, drug-related murders in which Holmes played some part. Strung-out and desperate, his film career over, he associated with both the victims and their enemies – they kept him around as a novelty.

Depending on whose story you believe, the “porn king” was either the mastermind of the massacre or an unwitting accomplice to it. There’s also the tangential story of Dawn (Kate Bosworth), a young girl Holmes was romancing at the time, which mainly serves to show us how badly the man hurt the people who loved him.

Most of the story is told in flashback, after the murders, by several narrators. The structure is taken from “Citizen Kane” or Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” with various accounts both adding to and contradicting one another, until it finally builds to something definitive. In those films, the format served the drama. In “Wonderland,” it’s just tedious; a bad fit for the material.

New director James Cox heaps on inconsistent style. He cuts annoyingly fast – music-video fast – at points, and his use of various filters and film stocks makes the film look like Steven Soderbergh’s whole career put in a blender.

Somehow, Cox persuaded a bunch of capable actors to languish in supporting roles here – Lisa Kudrow, Dylan McDermott, Tim Blake Nelson, Ted Levine, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Janeane Garofalo, and more.

Kilmer is quite good, though – better than the film deserves. Well, he’s good when the script allows him to be. Not when it has him tearfully breaking down, screaming “I’m Johnny f—ing Wad!” No one could pull that off. No one.