WHAT'S IN THE BOX! WHAT'S IN THE BOX!

Richard Kelly is very marmite, he's one you love, of which I sit in that camp with a passion, or you hate his works, like a lot of people.
You can claim Donnie Darko is a masterpiece, doesn't mean you love his work, Southland Tales is the deal-breaker. No one seemed to like it, poor reception at Cannes, recut, sorted out, limited release after a year and a half later, critics and the few who saw it still unimpressed.

What I saw was a very funny, odd, eccentric fantasy comedy drama thriller that doesn't really want you to keep track of what's going on unless you actually care enough to watch the film, rather than ignore it and hope to know what's going on.
People hate to be active.

I would love to say that the third feature from Mr. Kelly was up there with his last two greats, the first chance I got to see one of his films in the cinema, The Box stars Cameron Diaz who manages to not be completely awful, James Marsden who is always good and Frank Langella who is very creepy but easy to watch. Add to that Holmes Osbourne once more, who is great though underused, and the cast is solid.
It's a shame, however, that the film never really gets good enough for the talent involved. It's tense, really tense at points, the pre-push the button sequence, the final 10 minutes, it can be horrendously hard to watch, however the hour and forty in between the tense stuff, whilst interesting and funny near the start, can be a drag. After 40 mins the titular decision gets made, and until the last 10 minutes the film slows to a snails pace, sometimes it's a detective tale, other times it's about aliens, but it's never interesting, getting painful. I wish I could say it was at the very least consistent but alas it tends to lend itself to a boring waste of time with a good start and amazing ending. Sorry Mr. Kelly, this isn't a step in the right direction.
7/10