Clay Pigeons

Looking back at the late nineties with fondness, it is cool to watch little movies that feature actors who were the next crop of stars to make their mark in the film industry for years to come. To think that the likes of Joaquin Phoenix and Vince Vaughn co-starring in this rural psycho-thriller with black humor are big stars today is no surprise. But I particularly find this young portion of Vaughn's career fascinating. Now he's one of comedy's elite. Ben Stiller, Vaughn, and Owen Wilson have carved quite a career for themselves. However, I often like the lesser recognized stuff. For instance, I dig Wilson's little crime comedy, The Big Bounce, which isn't all that heralded. Certainly, 1998's Clay Pigeons isn't. This was the same year a great batch of late 90s actors were corralled into the universally despised Van Sant "reimagining" of Hitchcock's Psycho. Of that batch, Vince Vaughn plays another psychopath (who is far more confident and charismatic here than as Norman in Psycho) in Clay Pigeons. Phoenix, a young man with a bright future ahead of him, is sort of Vaughn's psychopath's patsy. His life due to an affair, a friend's suicide to that affair, and the befriending of a killer who kills the widow he was having that affair with all hurl Clay (Phoenix) into a turmoil. The ending might be a bit of a surprise. Phoenix doesn't exactly do as you might expect, and Vaughn might not wind up with a toe tag like his many victims, either.