City Of Ghosts (2002) Review

In his directorial debut, actor Matt Dillon relies on colorful casting choices and exotic locations to pull together the first western film shot in Cambodia since the 1965 Peter O’Toole adventure drama Lord Jim. Matt Dillon in Cambodia (Courtesy of MGM)

Towards the end of Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, Boogie Nights, there is a nightmarish and otherworldly scene featuring Alfred Molina as a creepy drug lord whose ghetto lair is all the more imposing because of the constant din of exploding firecrackers, blaring party music and the nervous laughter of a Chinese manservant. If you can imagine a film that tries to maintain the look and feel of this scene for the better part of a two-hour running time, then you begin to get an idea of the extraordinary breadth of ambition that is Matt Dillon’s directorial debut, City of Ghosts. Featuring startlingly atmospheric settings and jittery camerawork, the movie also marks a belated return to the big screen for novelist and Dillon pal Barry Gifford, who co-wrote the film after previously helping David Lynch unleash the trilogy of Lost Highway, Hotel Room and Wild At Heart. Dillon stars as unassuming New York City con man Jimmy Cremmins, whose home insurance scam is suddenly exposed by the devastation of a Florida hurricane. After exchanging a round of pleasantries with federal investigators, Jimmy quickly flees to Cambodia, where his elusive partner in the scheme, Marvin (James Caan), lies in hiding from Russian mobsters. What begins as a vague search for the man who owes him a large sum of insurance scam money soon turns into a journey of harrowing self-discovery, as the lawless post-Khmer Rouge world of Cambodia coughs up a scruffy barkeep (Gerard Depardieu), a suave business associate (Stellan Skarsgard), a ravishing historical preservationist (Natasha McElhone) and a sweet natured taxi driver (Sereyvuth Kem). Ultimately, Jimmy finds himself in way over his head, but in the process he is able to finally decipher the complicated dynamics of his lifelong relationship with Marvin. Beyond a Far East locale and limited budget that would have had many veteran Hollywood directors quaking in their boots, Dillon demonstrates an eye for casting that is well beyond the grasp of most industry bred 39-year-olds. In choosing Caan, Depardieu and Skarsgard to play the film’s trio of shifty expatriates, Dillon has fashioned a group of supporting players whose storytelling abilities tie in beautifully with his hallucinatory tale. Where Dillon fails is in the overall pacing of the movie. City Of Ghosts loses the thread of its own storyline about halfway through the final third and is easily twenty minutes too long. For fans of risky and unconventional independent moviemaking, none of this will be enough to spoil an experience financed by an umbrella of companies including Kintop Pictures (Bend It Like Beckam, Buena Vista Social Club), Eternity Pictures (Deuces Wild, The Virgin Suicides) and Mainline Pictures (Boxing Helena, Body Count). But for the rest of the movie going audience, chances are the atmospheric and hypnotic mood of Dillon’s maiden voyage, which skips from a Phnom Penh hotel bar and middle-of-nowhere karaoke joint to an abandoned French Colonial hilltop casino, will not be enough to make it a satisfying experience. James Caan in City of Ghosts (2002) (Courtesy of IMDB) City Of Ghosts is certainly more impressive than Kevin Spacey’s directorial debut, Albino Alligator, in which Dillon stars alongside Faye Dunaway and Gary Sinese in a claustrophobic hostage drama set in a dead end bar. But it lacks the poise of another journey of self-discovery released a year later, Seven Years In Tibet, featuring fellow American heartthrob Brad Pitt as an Austrian Nazi sympathizer who decides to climb the Himalayas. In the end, it becomes clear that the missing ingredient in City of Ghosts is nothing more than some additional directing experience on the part of Dillon. He’s got all the right instincts for the medium and if he chooses to stick with it, he stands a good chance of drawing favorable comparisons with former collaborators such as Gus Van Sandt, who directed him in To Die For and Drugstore Cowboy, and Francis Ford Coppola, the man responsible for the New Rochelle, New York native’s early teen idol days in The Outsiders and Rumble Fish.