there are movies that pose a question in its first five minutes and spend the rest of the time trying to answer it .
then there are movies that spend the whole time posing questions and try to answer it all in the last five minutes .
writer - director john herzfeld 's two days in the valley falls into the latter category .
weaving together a grabbag of seemingly unrelated characters
, herzfeld 's tries very hard to keep the audience guessing with a altmanesque series of parallel stories .
hitmen lee ( james spader ) and his partner dosmo ( danny aiello ) pop a guy in bed while leaving his drugged wife becky fox ( teri hatcher ) lying next to him showing the audience where on her behind
she got nicely pricked .
an understandeably shocked becky runs out of the house the next morning before hailing down a couple of vice cops , ( jeff daniels ) and wes ( eric stoltz ) .
a murder is not vice territory , flirting with asian prostitues is , but wes would rather play inquisitive detective .
meanwhile , washed - up director , teddy ( paul mazursky ) is about to end his life .
but before he can do that , he must find a good home for his dog .
enter nurse audrey ( marsha mason ) , who takes the dog and teddy for a ride .
stuffy art dealer , allan hopper ( greg cruttwell ) has kidney stones .
while struggling about his fancy house , he switches between moaning in self - pity and dropping condescending hints about his loyal secretary 's ( glenne headly ) plain appearance .
do n't be surprised if you find yourself asking more than once just what the hell is going on .
you might like that feeling of cluelessness .
herzfeld does answer all the questions in the course of time and pieces it all rather neatly in the last five minutes .
the jigsaw puzzle assembled is n't stunning by any means though .
the characters lack the stature or moral complexity of altman 's real - life heroes in short cuts , even though they are interesting and funny .
funny , that is if you are n't comparing them to the likes of tarantino 's pulp chcaracters .
the tie - up is tidy but nowhere near the squeaky clean resolution of ( director 's name ?
guy who also did last seduction ) red rock west .
two days is n't a bad movie but there is n't much else to it than the screenplay novelty of the linkage of seemingly unrelated characters .
it 'll keep you guessing alright
but you wo n't remember the answers five minutes after the credits .
the flying inkpot rating system :
* wait for the tv2 broadcast .
*
* a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha !
*
* * pretty good , bring a friend .
*
*
* * amazing , potent stuff .
*
*
*
* * perfection . see it twice .
grabbag of seemingly unrelated characters do n't be surprised if you find yourself asking more than once just what the hell is going on lack the stature or moral complexity