The Salton Sea is a remote region in the Southern California desert between Los Angeles and such outlying hell-holes like Palmdale and Bakersfield. The title serves as a bit of a metaphor of sorts as to the symbolic environs one might find himself dwelling after a couple too many months abusing the films drug of choice - crystal meth. The Salton Sea is also famous, because of it's relative isolation and BFE status, for being a swell place for unsavory types to cook up a tasty batch of meth. Ah . . . just like ma used to make - you can almost smell the chemicals, cough medicines and Drano, with just a dash of love and a pinch of paprika, to give it a little kick.

Val Kilmer is Danny Parker, a man who has suffered one of those horrible life-altering tragedies (not quite as grisly as The Punisher, but along those lines) of the sort found in the best noir of the late '40s. And like those noir films of the 40's Kilmer narrates much of the proceedings. Kilmer's tragic loss is the kind of event that reconstructs a person's character, transforming a mild-mannered jazz trumpeter into a tattooed, spike-haired speed freak. Danny is on a path of speed-fueled revenge, and with any luck at all redemption.

The story begins at the end and then makes it's way back, after it fills us in (with the help of a flashback or two) as two how Kilmer's life has come to such an ugly pass - and then starts throwing surprises at us, which, for the most part I felt were effective. As the movie begins (along with Kilmer's narration) one would assume that Val is nothing but a tweaker king, who can outlast the best - stay up for 4 days at a time, thanks to a little help from meth (which they call Gak Just because I want to sound hip and it's a fun word to type I'm gonna call it gak too.)

The first surprise the film offers is that Kilmer is actually a snitch for a drug task force who use Kilmer to infiltrate a "gak shack," until he figures out who the dealer is, then narcs them off. Not such a likable guy at this point, but things aren't always as they seem. At this point his cop contacts are played by Doug Hutchison (The Green Mile) and Anthony LaPaglia (So I Married an Ax Murderer) but as we find out later on in the film, Kilmer has chosen these two low-life narcs, they didn't choose him.

There's not a lot more I can tell you about this film with out coming dangerously close to Spoilsville. I will say there are some fine performances turned in by the likes of Deborah Kara Unger, Adam Goldberg, Peter Sarsgaard. The finale takes place in the middle of the Salton Sea in a strange sort of fortress run by Vincent D'Onofrio in another one of those unforgettable bad-guy performances where you fall in love with his preposterous eccentricities - this is a monster for the ages. In any case by the time we reach this part of the caper, you'll find yourself firmly in Kilmer's camp and it's a relatively satisfying ending. I was a bit annoyed by the voice over narration - which tried to be a little "too" like Tarantino meets Damon Runyan, which was alot of the time pretentious. Overall, the film is quite entertaining and I'd give it, at the very least, a luke-warm recommendation - I'd also recommend a hot shower after it's over.