2 Days in the Valley

Ensembles

The 1990's have had many movies with large casts of disparate characters tied together in strange ways. Robert Altman's Short Cuts, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and Doug Liman's Go spring to mind. I can now add John Herzfeld's 2 Days in the Valley to the list, but I have to place it squarely at the bottom. 2 Days lacks the intelligence of Short Cuts, the crackle of Pulp Fiction, and the exuberance of Go. The plot ties its characters together in interesting ways, reminiscent of "Seinfeld", but the overall effect is somewhat disappointing.

Perhaps the problem lies in the ensemble cast which never quite clicks. The movie has ten characters of roughly equal importance, and tries to give each some semblance of backstory. That would be fine for a longer movie, but the 104-minute runtime doesn't leave room for the kind of character development that would make the movie more engrossing. The moments where we do get a stronger sense of the characters are often dampened by hurried delivery.