Characters get lost in ‘Valley’

Written and directed by David Jacobson, “Down in the Valley” is about a self-styled cowpoke (Edward Norton) who while pumping gas in the San Fernando Valley becomes smitten with a naive underage girl (Evan Rachel Wood). Complications naturally ensue, largely in the form of the girl’s aggravated father and the man’s slipping grasp on reality. Jacobson, whose previous work includes the serial-killer drama “Dahmer,” is bursting with nifty ideas stemming from the central conceit of an Old West cowboy let loose in a modern landscape, few of which are brought to any kind of satisfactory fruition. The filmmaker obviously intends his work as a sweeping statement regarding contemporary masculinity and the malleability of current values, while also tossing in a few other notions that can be thematically tied to the western.

For a film that has allegedly undergone extensive tinkering following its premiere at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, “Down in the Valley” abounds in nagging loose ends and suffers overall from logy pacing. Norton has assayed this territory, as a man who is not what he seems, so many times that he could do it in his sleep (as he appears to here), and the usually incandescent Wood is largely underused. Though the film brims over with portentous allusions to classic western films, it is never made entirely clear to what end Jacobson truly means these references, so the film just keeps circling, never narrowing in on who its characters truly are or where it wants to take them.

“Down in the Valley” (Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and drug use) Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes.