2 Days in the Valley (1996)

Pure smog. Like a virus that eats away at the brain, ''Look — I'm the next Tarantino!'' syndrome can seize hold of a young filmmaker, resulting in a movie that's little more than a daisy chain of ''attitude.'' In 2 Days in the Valley, a smug galumphing fiasco of a thriller, an icy-psychotic hitman (James Spader, coiffed and bespectacled like Michael Caine in The Ipcress File) paws the breasts of his Nordic-amazon girlfriend (Charlize Theron) as blood gushes from a wound in her abdomen. A suicidal television director (Paul Mazursky) skulks through the San Fernando Valley accompanied by a faithful schnauzer. A broken-down crook (Danny Aiello) whips up spaghetti sauce as he holds a pair of hostages at gunpoint. And so on. Writer-director John Herzfeld blends violence and top-heavy absurdism, creating a self-conscious muddle of indie-style hackery. Strip away the goofball nihilism, though, and what's left is as formulaic as any straight-to-tape opus with a title like Dangerous Instinct. D-