2 Days in the Valley

2 Days in the Valley is a neatly folded piece of cinematic quirk. Read full review

Two Days in the Valley lacks the humanity of ''Short Cuts'' or the edgy hipness of ''Pulp Fiction,'' but it is still a sleek, amusingly nasty screen debut by a film maker whose television credits include an Amy Fisher docudrama. Read full review

It's fun to watch 2 Days in the Valley” in the moment, and then fun afterward to think about the way the story was put together, and all of those lives connected. Read full review

I enjoyed 2 Days in the Valley. It's pure entertainment – nothing too serious, nothing too deep – with an artistic sensibility. It's rare for movies these days to recognize that the audience might have an intelligence, and even more unusual for them not to talk down to those in the not-so-cheap seats. So, if you're looking for some smart fun, John Herzfeld's feature is a worthy choice. And you don't need two days – just two hours. Read full review

2 Days in the Valley is skillfully made. The beginning introduces a handful of disparate characters. It juggles their stories and then deftly starts bringing them together through some surprising and unexpected turns. Read full review

2 Days in the Valley has a real sense of place, and a pace that allows time to discover its characters' twisted troubles and fears. They may be a mess, but the movie, happily, isn't. [27 Sept 1996, p.03]

The movie never seems to force its connections or its revelations upon us, but merely discovers them in their provocative places; in short, it doesn't seem to be working very hard, but the apparent simplicity is deceiving: There's a grand, clever and ultimately satisfying plan under all the running around and bumping into each other. [27 Sept 1996]

IF you can accept the notion of a sympathetic character who is also a hit man - in other words, if you went along with the game in "Pulp Fiction" and "Bulletproof Heart" - you should enjoy 2 Days in the Valley, a fast-moving, sometimes violent, sometimes sexy, sometimes surprisingly funny story of crime and romance in the San Fernando Valley. [27 Sept 1996, p.3E]

Aiello, Headly and Mazursky create memorable, unexpectedly sympathetic characters. Sometime director Mazursky ("Enemies, a Love Story") is especially poignant and brave here, playing a has-been director in a role that calls inevitable attention to his own stalled career. [27 Sept 1996, p.50]

Darkly comic 2 Days in the Valley is Tarantino lite and low-fat Altman. And that's not bad. It leaves you filled but without that bloated feeling. [27 Sept 1996]

2 Days in the Valley will rank high on any list of films containing the greatest number of scenes in which people are threatened at gunpoint. Marked by a wearying amount of hostile and antisocial behavior by its criminal and civilian characters alike, writer-director John Herzfeld's debut outing features a measure of unexpected humor and some good character work by the ensemble cast. Read full review

Somehow, although this film's unevenness tends to take us out of the action now and then, there's something kind of agreeable about it. Aiello is extremely funny and so, in his creepy way, is Spader. Read full review

The result is not so much complexity as a mildly entertaining collection of rather superficial short stories; or perhaps it's best described as an elementary elaboration of a greater number of subsidiary characters than usual, inside a piece of pulp fiction. Smoothly constructed, for such a busy piece of work, and Hatcher's ascent to stardom continues. Read full review

Tarantino's gift, at least with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," is his ability to create comedy within horrific violence. In "2 Days," the comedy and violence travel along different paths altogether, and when they finally do merge, as is often the case on the highways in the Valley, it isn't pretty. [27 Sept 1996, p.14]

It's not that this is a bad, blackly comic slice-of-lowlife: It's just that you've just seen it all before. Read full review

On the whole, there are some good moments in the movie, but altogether, 2 Days in the Valley is about one day too much. Read full review

Unfortunately shallow characterisation, a script so laid-back you can almost hear it snoring and the occasional outburst of hokey dialogue lead to a movie a good deal less charming than it thinks it is. Read full review

The standard line on this actor-heavy, brain-light concoction by writer-director John Herzfeld (1996) is that it’s Short Cuts meets Pulp Fiction, but it isn’t a tenth as good as either. Read full review

The film's confused moral sense is summed up by the contrast between the Aiello and Spader characters. Though both are professional killers, Aiello is somehow coded as "good" because he takes time to make pasta, and Spader is "bad" because he plays mildly kinky games with his mistress (imposing South African model Charlize Theron). [27 Sept 1996, p.43]

Alas, this is one of those movies where a clever character must suddenly have an attack of doltishness for the plot to proceed, and Spader becomes the victim of bad writing. [27 Sept 1996, p.5E]

A stupid movie that expects us to suspend our disbelief until it seems smart. Skip it and see some other movie that features two hired killers having a conversation in a car. Read full review

Laughable, contrived banality. You won't believe a second of it. [17 Sept 1996, p.25G]

Writer-director John Herzfeld blends violence and top-heavy absurdism, creating a self-conscious muddle of indie-style hackery. Strip away the goofball nihilism, though, and what’s left is as formulaic as any straight-to-tape opus with a title like "Dangerous Instinct." Read full review