After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.
The film finds a demented dark humour in him and many other characters, but the other side of that coin is the emotional turbulence and tragic resonance to Kilmer’s arc, two conflicting energies that seem to somehow coexist beautifully. The score by Thomas Newton is noirish and sad, with strains that sound almost like heavenly choirs too, giving the city of angels a half lit, otherworldly quality. The title is important; the Salton Sea represents three key elements to the film.
''The Salton Sea,'' a grim, druggy nightmare of a film set in the Los Angeles demimonde of methamphetamine users and dealers, aims to be the ne plus ultra of sleazy West Coast hyperchill. How close to freezing is it? In the surreal opening scene in a dilapidated rooming house that has been set on fire, its tranced-out, heavily tattooed protagonist, Danny Parker (Val Kilmer), idly noodles on his trumpet like a latter-day Chet Baker, indifferent to the flames darting around him.
