Kalifornia

Maybe we can blame David Lynch. After all, Blue Velvet helped to popularize the artsy-smarty psycho flick.

But I liked Blue Velvet. In fact, it's funnier every time I see it. And it offers the definitive statement on beer brands and class structure.

I didn't like Kalifornia, and its self-consciously hip misspelling with a "K" is only one of the reasons why. (It also doesn't know a thing about American beer-drinking habits. At least Lynch did his research.)

Here's the set-up: David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes are an ultra-cool couple. They wear a lot of black. He's a grad student and would-be journalist who's obsessed with serial killers. She's a photographer whose work resembles Robert Mapplethorpe's. Together, they decide to drive cross-country to visit famous murder sites for a photo-book they're compiling.

But they're low on money, so they advertise for a rider to join them on the magical mayhem tour. Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis play the couple that hops aboard. Immediately, we realize that Duchovny never bothered to do a simple reference check.

But their poor fashion sense isn't the only problem. Pitt just happens to be your typical, workaday serial killer. You know, the kind who whacks the landlord before moving. The rest of the film writes itself. The journey becomes a hellish descent as Kalifornia gets downright mean and nasty. And only Lewis picks up any fashion tips.

Kalifornia is even worse than its cheap plot, which was cloned from The Hitcher (the Rutger Hauer film with the infamous french fries scene). The movie is another volley in the new yuppie horror genre of anti-working class films. It's as if the displaced labor force has become an exotic, dangerous threat to the children of the managerial class.

In Kalifornia's violent collision between Tobacco Road and the Village Voice, no cliches are spared. What's more, in the movie's journey from the industrial wasteland to an abandoned nuclear test site, it flaunts a political pose that it doesn't believe in.

The whole gory mess is a misguided missile in contemporary class warfare.