The Big Empty (2003 film)
The Big Empty is a 2003 comedy film directed and written by Steve Anderson. It stars Jon Favreau as a struggling actor with a bizarre request from his neighbor to deliver a suitcase that he cannot open. While there, he meets an unusual cast of characters, and starts to think this delivery might be more than it seems. Plot. John Person (stage name), struggling actor in LA, is in debt $28,000. His friend Grace, lives across the hall. One night, their neighbor Neely, in a neck brace, invades his apartment with an unusual  offer: deliver a blue suitcase to a truck stop in Baker, California to "Cowboy", for $25,000. He gets a gun to protect the case. Initially refusing, as it seems insane, Neely has lots of his very personal information, including masturbation preferences and sperm sample test results. Realizing he's serious, John takes the job, but demands $28,000 to pay off his debts, and Neely agrees. Checking into the Royal Hawaiian Motel in Baker, John finds out he just missed "Cowboy", described as wearing a "big, stupid black duster and Stetson". Going nearby for a drink, he's immediately  held at gunpoint by the hot-tempered Randy, who thinks John is after his girlfriend Ruthie. She comes to John's room later, giving him his wallet that he dropped in the bar, and they hit it off. In a diner the next day, John meets Dan, who tells a lot of strange tales and conspiracy theories about what goes on in the desert. Later, John meets Ruthie outside a gas station and buys her beer, JD, and a can of whipped cream. Then, they drive to Devil's Crest lakebed far out of town. He hears more stories about  RVs and people "disappear without a trace" there. They get drunk, mostly on a mixture of Jack Daniel's and whipped cream. Ruthie gets sick and passes out, so John drives her home to her mother Stella's bar. Going back to the motel, John has missed Cowboy again. He left him a bowling ball bag he is not allowed to open, with Neely's name on it. Grace calls to tell him Neely was murdered, and FBI agent Banks is looking for him. Neely was shot, beheaded, and the head is missing. John immediately fears the head is in  the bag, but isn't sure, as he cannot open it. Candy, a hooker, comes to John's room, as she heard he is meeting Cowboy. She warns him, as she heard rumors about Cowboy and three strippers from Las Vegas who disappeared. She describes Cowboy's black duster and Stetson, and John immediately becomes wary. Later on, Randy confronts him, asking what they did at Devil's Crest, threatening to kill him if he talks to Ruthie again. The next day, John buries the bag and later, at the bar, Stella reveals she is not really Ruthie's  mother. She found her wandering around the dry lake bed at Devil's Crest when she was only two. FBI agent Banks is at the bar, and tries to link him to Neely's murder and 75 mysterious disappearances from Baker. John sees Randy has stolen his suitcase so, he drives to the junkyard, with his gun, finding Randy has tied Ruthie up. The men have an armed standoff, but John convinces Randy to let Ruthie and him go by threatening to shoot her. Later, Ruthie comes to John's room to tell him Randy was arrested, and they make  love. Later that night, Randy orders John to drive to the desert at gunpoint and dig a grave. Once finished, Randy is about to shoot him, but Cowboy shoots Randy. Going back to the motel, John finds more suitcases stacked in his room. Cowboy tells him to drive them to the Devil's Crest lakebed. When John refuses, he forces him to do it by holding Grace hostage. John goes to Devil's Crest and meets Bob the Indian, who tells him where and how to arrange the suitcases, and leaves. Cowboy arrives in an RV with a group in  blue tracksuits, similar to Neely's. One of them is Ruthie. Cowboy opens the bowling bag, pulling out a pair of size-11 bowling shoes. Offering them to John, as a chance to "come with him" to Paradise, he refuses. So, Cowboy gives them to barefooted Ruthie. John asks her why, she excitedly invites him to come too, but he declines. Cowboy shoots a flare into the air. John warily asks what the Cowboy is, and is told he is simply a cowboy, even as his skin begins to turn blue and translucent. As the flare explodes, John blacks out. John  wakes up alone on the dry lakebed. All of the suitcases are open and empty, except for a locked one nearby. Frustrated, he takes it, and begins the long walk over sand dunes to the highway. Grace meets him, and says he has been missing for three days. She gives him a key from Cowboy and he opens the case to find his $28,000. Back in LA, Agent Banks interrogates John about what happened in Baker, who attributes the 75 disappearances to Cowboy. He can't tell this to the families of those disappeared. He then tells John that  his credit card debts were paid off with money unrelated to the $28,000, which he says John won in Vegas. Perhaps he believes John's story, then John sees a band-aid on Banks' neck, similar to the one that appeared on his own neck after his Devil's Crest, relating to one of Dan's conspiracy theories. Sometime later, John and Grace are on a date at a bowling alley. She congratulates him for getting a supporting role in a movie, showing his acting prospects are improving. She then repeats Cowboy's line about starting a new game , and her eyes are bright blue. John, wearing size-11 shoes, remarks she looks different, before he rolls a ball down the alley; his eyes turn bright blue too. The bowling ball is then shown rolling across the vast moonlit Devil's Crest. Far in the distance white flames, like the Cowboy's flare, rise from the desert floor. Locations. "The Big Empty" was all shot on location in Los Angeles and Baker, California, which is a real town in southern California where most of the story takes place. Many of its locations are real, including the Royal Hawaiian Motel. Several  landmarks in Baker are also shown, including the world's tallest thermometer. The Alto Nido apartments where John Person is living are the same ones where William Holden lived in the beginning of "Sunset Blvd". All the bowling scenes were filmed at the famous Hollywood Star Lanes in Hollywood. It has since been demolished. Reception. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 71% based on reviews from 7 critics. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, saying it "Has a seductive easiness (which may not be for everyone, but it works ), a laid-back yet ever-so-slightly portentous score and a wonderful sense of place." Chuck Wilson of L.A. Weekly wrote: "More amiable than laugh-out-loud funny, the film pokes along, buoyed by the motel's bright Hawaiian color scheme, and a moonlit desert finale that's awfully pretty." Robert Koehler of Variety wrote: ""Hobbled by uninspired stabs at cleverness and surreal narrative curlicues, The Big Empty goes nowhere, replete with a question mark of an ending that isn't worth answering."