The test of the time is probably the best test that a movie can pass or fail. I have seen The Salton Sea two weeks ago, and did not have time to write immediately about it. Two weeks later I have a hard time remembering what the film was about. Fragments of good film making are left in my memory but they seem to be buried in a story which tries to make sense of some very improbable coincidences which end by making no sense, without the courage of being nonsense to the end, as in a Tarantino film.
source www.imdb.com/title/tt0235737/
The Salton Sea tells the violent story of the life of a trumpet player turned into nightmare as his wife is murdered by drug dealers and trying to take revenge by enrolling as an undercover agent. His fake identity places him in the situation to meet the evil and their victims, and in order to take the revenge to the ultimate satisfaction he is obliged to go rogue and take all upon himself. No prisoners are taken and there hardly can be survivors from this situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKi70hCRBKA
The world described in the film is the one of Tarantino’s characters but director D.J. Caruso is no Tarantino and the story lacks exactly the sarcastic craziness of Quentin. Val Klimer does a fair job, but fair is not enough. I remember too little of this film two weeks after I have seen it, and I will probably remember nothing two weeks from now.