Buried in the hundred minutes of Dolan's Cadillac, there lies a superb one-act. It arrives right before the climax and barrels through to the end, fueled by the dual performances of Christian Slater and Wes Bentley. One all snark and screams, the other grim and calm, their personalities rage against each other as the story moves with implacable logic. That the film features fifty minutes of ostensible buildup is forgivable - a Stephen King adaptation this competent is impressive, even moreso when you consider that it sat on a shelf for two years, hidden from the world.
Dolan's Cadillac, in its original form, is a calculating story, an homage to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", in which a man achieved vengeance upon an unsuspecting drunkard by burying him alive. King's story replaces bricklaying with shovelfuls of dirt, but it maintains the same cold purpose. Jeff Beesley approaches King's tale differently. The first three pages of the story stretch across the first half of the film, as Tom (Wes Bentley), and wife Elizabeth (Emmanuelle Vaugier) face their accidental nemesis, Dolan (Christian Slater). They become enemies after Elizabeth witnesses Dolan's cronies execute two prisoners. Her determination to testify in court leads to assassination, and Robinson promises some kind of vengeance.
His crusade makes for a narrow story focused on these two personalities, so casting becomes key. Christian Slater has a lot of fun as gangster Jimmy Dolan, who refers to his unwilling whores as "units" to be moved. Giving Dolan that specific trade (King's story was purposefully vague) keeps his scenes uniquely repulsive, and Slater savors the opportunity to overact - he's a lot of fun. Pitted against Dolan is Wes Bentley's Tom, and while Bentley's suffered a downward slide in legacy since American Beauty, he still carries some of that eerie intensity. While that makes his early scenes discomforting, with his steady, unblinking gazes, he proves effective in the final half hour. The payoff of his careful planning proves satisfying.
Less satisfying is the lack of confidence in the first half of the film, as Beesley crutches on some unusual elements. He makes Elizabeth's ghostly presence haunt Tom, when the last images of her alive are strong enough to cast a shadow over the film. He also incorporates lines from The Stand to describe Dolan, first in the opening and later in the film. Both times, they feel absurdly out of place, too poetic for the grungy story. Both of these problems, however, are nearly redeemed by a clever sequence in which Tom confronts Dolan in a bathroom. Dolan's self-impressed mutterings as he emasculates Tom prove invaluable in the ultimate destination of the story.
Beesley captures those final scenes with an eye for the dirt and heat and saturation in the desert, making the setting an invisible third character. The world of these two men is lonely, as they have willfully isolated themselves from society. One of the dubious pleasures of horror/suspense stories is watching sane people gradually become capable of horrible sins. The film is not without some serious flaws, but, at its very best, Dolan's Cadillac reminds us of how quickly we can fall into an abyss of our own unwitting design.
RATING: B-
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