KALIFORNIA (1993)

KALIFORNIA (R) It's like a film-school thesis gone disastrously wrong. Early (Brad Pitt), a mangy white-trash sociopath, lives in a trailer with the childlike Adele (Juliette Lewis) and kills people as casually as if they were bugs. Brian (David Duchovny) is an earnest yuppie writing a treatise on serial killers, and Carrie (Michelle Forbes) is his chic photographer girlfriend. Does it seem remotely plausible that this quartet would end up sharing a cross-country road trip? Not bloody likely. From its inception, however, Kalifornia throws dramatic sense out the window. Pitt's performance is straight from the look-how-many-days-I-skipped-washing-my-hair school of grunge integrity. D ( 187, Sept. 10) -OG