The Canyons - DVD

Content: Movie producer Christian (James Deen) actually has everything you could want. Money, a fancy house, a business going well and an attractive girlfriend. But the everyday life in luxury is also extremely boring for him again and again, which is why he is always looking for variety, especially in sexual terms. In addition to minor affairs, he invites strangers to his home again and again, who may experience exciting sex adventures with him and Tara (Lindsay Lohan). Tara is happy to accept these adventures, as Christian offers her a life she has only dreamed of as a small actress. But then her ex Ryan (Nolan Gerard Funk) shows up at the audition for Christian's latest movie, stirring up old feelings in Tara. When jealous Christian catches wind that Tara might be having an affair with Ryan, he launches a perfidious power play designed to destroy his nemesis, and not just professionally...

With The Canyons, director Paul Schrader and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis have taken a huge gamble. They provided much of the production cost of about a quarter of a million dollars, which is very low by Hollywood standards, from their own funds. The rest they raised through crowd funding. This allowed them to realize their vision independent of the influence of major studios. Schrader and Ellis also didn't exactly play it safe with their decision to cast porn actor James Deen and Lindsay Lohan, who is notorious for her very difficult and rather destructive behavior. But with two experts in their field, it was actually reasonable to assume that they knew what they were getting into and that the risk would pay off in the end. After all, Schrader wrote the classic Taxi Driver and also revealed great talent as a director with films like A Man for Certain Hours and Cat People, while Ellis penned a great morality tale with his cult novel American Psycho. When these two creative minds join forces, something good is bound to come out of it.

There is definitely a sense of that in rudiments. In its best moments, The Canyons is a cynical swan song to the machinations of Hollywood and the superficialities and inflated egos that reign there. But unfortunately, Ellis didn't elaborate on this felicitous aspect in his screenplay, instead focusing on the sexual power plays between Christian and Tara. The fact that Schrader has then staged the sex scenes very open-hearted, but still very sultry, makes the film then finally seem like one of the countless erotic thrillers that filled the shelves in the video stores in the 1990s after the success of Basic Instinct.

The actors can also not do much in the face of the rather weak script. Even if you can credit Lindsay Lohan with the courage to be outspoken and you can definitely credit James Deen with acting skills beyond the sex scenes, they never manage to breathe real life into their characters. Luckily, this doesn't have too negative an effect on the film, as Christian and Tara are supposed to be very superficial characters who care about themselves the most. And they actually convey that really well with their somewhat undercooked, selenium-less acting.

The Canyons is atmospherically compelling, has some thoroughly entertaining moments worth watching, but overall falls far short of its potential. With a better script and edgier direction, the whole thing could have been a thoroughly in-depth relationship thriller and a biting look behind the scenes of Hollywood. As it is, however, Paul Schrader has managed nothing more than a very conventional erotic thriller that lacks any form of depth at the moments when it really matters. Nevertheless, for lovers of the genre there is just a decent bottom line: worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: Since only a data-reduced press sample was available for testing, no rating can be given here about the final picture and sound quality.

Extras: As a bonus there is only the trailer to the film.

Conclusion:The Canyons is a gamble in more ways than one: for one thing, director Paul Schrader and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis put a lot of their own money into the low budget production in order to be completely independent of major studios. On the other hand, they cast the drama with a porn star and a scandal-ridden diva. A big risk that only paid off to a certain extent. The film has its moments dramaturgically and is very stylishly executed. But the script is simply too weak to offer more than just content-less, turgid eroticism in the end. For Lindsay Lohan fans and friends of American B-thriller dramas but still worth watching!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp