Wonderland
In the world of pornographic adult movies, there is no bigger or greater legend than that of John Holmes, the man with the 12 inch member who screwed and blazed a trail through a reported 14,000 women in literally thousands of porn films mostly in the 1970s and was a worldwide household name and virtual phenomenon in his chosen industry. But the actual man himself was known for being pretty much a train wreck in his offscreen life, starting off by being married to a VERY conservative woman whom he became separated from when he began his career, but who nonetheless still loved him to some extent that she remained a supportive figure to him throughout much of his prime before he got caught up in a passionate relationship with an underage 15 year old girl who stayed with him for a number of years. He was also a chain smoker with a voracious appetite for cocaine, doing so much of it and spending so much money to get it that itās estimated that his successful career would have enabled him to have been a millionaire many times over (like Ron Jeremy) if he didnāt spend every dollar he ever had to get as much blow as he could. Worse, when even his porn career still saw him coming up short with the drug dealers, he would resort to petty theft up to and including stealing luggage out of the baggage claim terminals at LAX and even pimping out his young girlfriend to perverted old rich dudes in order to make ends meet on his habit. But the lowest point would come in 1981 with what would appear to have been his direct involvement in the murders of 4 admittedly lowlife individuals at The Wonderland apartment complex in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles which is where this 2003 movie takes its story from (or as the opening titles would read, āafter the legendā) and was noted for being especially grisly and gruesome with the murder weapons of choice apparently being lead pipes that were used to bash the victimsā brains in while they were all passed out on heroin. In the all important key role of Holmes himself, we get Val Kilmer, certainly a larger than life acting legend in his own right who no doubt knew that playing another iconic figure would lead to direct comparisons to his unforgettable portrayal of Jim Morrison in Oliver Stoneās The Doors. He neednāt have worried if that was indeed the case as the movie never shows Holmes at any times on the set of his porno films, preferring rather to simply just tell us that he is Holmes and allowing Kilmer to fill in the gaps with his performance here. And what a wretched and pathetic figure that Kilmerās Holmes turns out to be, hopelessly wacked out on drugs and adopting an almost constantly passive attitude with not only the women in his life but also with his drug friends which leads to him being openly mocked and belittled by them in front of others. Even though accounts of him later on stated that he was a physically abusive type (not shown in the film), ironically enough he almost comes across as being an utterly destroyed incarnation of Kilmerās Morrison in thinking that his own natural raw charisma and goofy smile will always convince people to take his side (with varying results). His hooking up with the so called āWonderland Gangā (Josh Lucas, Tim Blake Nelson, and Dylan McDermott), a trio of junkies, dealers, and thieves who are known for their legendarily uproarious parties and are said to only be keeping Holmes around because heās burned every other dealer in town and is fun to show off to their friends is the formula for his own personal destruction since he also associates with a feared Lebanese nightclub owner and generally overall unsavory criminal kingpin named Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian) and with key elements of the story being told from multiple points of view, we can believe that either The Wonderland Guys goaded Holmes into helping them get access to Nashās home so that they could brutally assault and rob him of cash and drugs worth upwards of $1.2 million or that Holmes himself actually masterminded the robbery and sent the three of them to do his dirty work while he stayed back at their crib and hung out, and then afterwards Holmes either was unhappy with his cut so he approached Nash or he was grabbed off the streets of Hollywood by Nashās goons where he not only confessed to helping with the robbery, but even led a lead pipe wielding hit squad back to their place where the horribly gruesome murders happened, leading to the deaths of the Lucas and Nelson characters along with two doped up females on the premises. But McDermott (who was part of the robbery) happened to not be there at the time and when he saw that one of the dead females was actually his girlfriend, he was compelled to go to the cops despite being a known scumbag himself and implicated Holmes in everything that had happened before Holmes is picked up by the cops and in turn gives a kinder, gentler account of his own level of guilt. If this sounds just like what you think this is, then it really is just that, a true crime story that due to its overall nature pretty much has NO likable or even decent characters (with the cops being more of a neutral party than anything else) due to the basic mindset of both the perpetrators AND the victims who probably had it coming, with Holmesā own involvement due to his celebrity status giving it a tabloid sheen that just canāt be faked. The one attempt at a sympathetic character comes in the form of Kate Bosworth as Holmesā very young girlfriend Dawn (who was a producer of the film and was onset often) who is portrayed as being both a victim who canāt shake her love of this guy and also as an addict herself whom Holmes shields from his darker friends and never brings to the parties. Then we have Lisa Kudrow in the ubiquitous role of Holmesā estranged wife Sharon, who has continued to show love and support over the years to both John AND his girlfriend (and whose face shows the years of damage and stress that this has caused in doing so) who not only is ready to give up on her wayward husband once and for all, but also is hiding a secret confession from John on the night of the murders which she wouldnāt reveal publicly until after his death. The rest of the impressive cast includes Ted Levine and M.C. Gainey as the cops on the case who debate the pros and cons about who they think is guilty and who is not (although Holmes was tried for the murders and acquitted), Janeane Garofalo, Natasha Gregson Wagner, and Christina Applegate as the other junkie lowlifes / potential murder victims, and even Paris Hilton in a quick cameo. It must be said that Bogosian (with limited screen time) does some chilling work in the role of Eddie Nash, a real life LA crime figure (who remains alive and free today) who did admit to masterminding the murders as part of a massive overall plea bargain deal he cut for which he only served three years. In terms of being a cautionary tale about substance addiction, itās a bit harder to decipher, as it appears obvious that the victims were caught with their pants down so to speak and unable to mount much of an effort to defend themselves due to being completely wacked out on heroin at the time (which strongly emphasizes the case for how bad your guard is down while on it) but other than that thereās little here to justify the rather bleak tone other than the idea that the greatest porno star to ever live would actually lower himself to hang around with these scumbags. Indeed, the spirit of Holmes and his legend probably hangs heavier over the story than anything else, though the most horrifying piece of trivia was left out of the film when Nash decided that in order to get Holmes out of the way to keep him from talking, he offered The Porn King a $1 million salary (which Holmes couldnāt turn down) to star in his first (and only) gay porn film alongside two young men of whom Nash was aware of at that time in 1983 were in the late stages of HIV / AIDS, thus causing Holmes to contract the disease on camera and later die from it in 1988, a sad but perhaps fitting end to the undisputed greatest at doing what it was that he did but who still found himself being dragged down to a lower rung in life than most of us will thankfully ever knowā¦
8/10