"No - I don't know what we're doing here either"
If you’re feeling generous you might describe the adapation of Richard Rayner’s novel ‘LA Without A Map’ as a cult movie.
It’s chief (only?) attractions are that it stars David Tennant pre- Doctor Who and features a cameo role by Johnny Depp.
It was made by Mika Kaurismäki, elder brother of Aki who made two favourite movies of mine – ‘Ariel’ and ‘The Match Factory Girl’. Aki was called Finland’s answer to Jim Jarmusch and the two are friends. I suspect this had something to do with Depp’s appearance which can only have been as a favour, his star rating presumably helping to get the film financed and distributed.
Depp has no proper role as such and features in just one brief scene. Despite this, on the DVD copy I had, he had top billing and his photo is on the cover.
David Tennant’s name is not even given although if I were him I would be thankful for this. He plays Richard, a bored undertaker with a terrible haircut who lives in Bradford, Yorkshire. He is smitten by Barbara (Vinessa Shaw), a visiting American who apparently was a Playboy bunny in Rayner’s book but is here is an aspiring actress. When she returns to LA he recklessly decides to follow.
The rest is a tedious and highly implausable sequence of encounters with much being made of the cultural and linguistic gulf between the two nations. There’s a running gag of people calling Richard English and him protesting “I’m Scottish” which is about the highest level of ‘humour’ we reach. The actors try to make the best of an awful script and it drifts towards a predictable feel good ending.
In short, not cult but crap.
