In Twenty 20-Fav, we’re spending 2025 examining the work of actor/director Jon Favreau. This week’s entry is a double feature from director George Hickenlooper.
For all intents and purposes, the two films in today’s column no longer exist. They’re two mid-90s, low budget indie releases that didn’t make an impression on the arthouse circuit, and therefore never attained any kind of second life on home video. To even watch these movies for this column, I had to import one all the way from Korea, while the other can only be watched in ten minute chunks on Youtube1. But I did it. For you. Both of you. (Thank you for reading!)
Both movies come from George Hickenlooper, most famous for directing the award-winning 1991 documentary Hearts of Darkness, chronicling the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. He also directed the short film that would later become Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade. Hickenlooper ran in the same social circle as James Gunn, both attending St. Louis University High in the early 1980s. He’s also first cousin to current Colorado senator John Hickenlooper, though that really doesn’t have anything to do with his filmmaking bona fides. Just thought it was interesting.
Hickenlooper made a name for himself with a handful of documentaries about other filmmakers. The aforementioned Hearts of Darkness won him accolades, but he’s also produced pieces on Dennis Hopper, Peter Bogdanovich and Monte Hellman. His foray into narrative features in the mid-90s coincided with the rise the indie film scene in the US. It’s 1995 and suddenly everyone wants their own Pulp Fiction moment. Awful human beings spewing vaguely overwritten dialogue, and maybe one of them pulls a gun for dramatic emphasis. Stories about crime, sex, deeply flawed human beings, all that fun stuff.
PERSONS UNKNOWN
Persons Unknown begins as a fairly typical film noir setup. Former cop-turned-security dealer Jim Holland (Joe Mantegna) randomly crosses paths with, then sleeps with, and later gets robbed by femme fatale Amanda (Kelly Lynch). He follows her to a hideout in the hills where she’s holed up with her beau Terry (Jon Favreau) and her wheelchair-bound sister Molly (Naomi Watts). He stakes them out and watches as they plan and execute a heist on a warehouse, where they steal millions of dollars of Mexican drug cartel money. Once the money is stashed, Holland steals it for himself and immediately uses it to pay off his debts and buy himself a yacht. Like ya do. This then sets into motion a cat and mouse game as the cartel closes in on them, forcing Holland to sneak the two sisters to safety. Structurally, it’s not all that dissimilar from No Country for Old Men, and I wonder now if Cormac McCarthy saw this movie at some point.
This sounds like a perfect setup for a crime caper, but once Holland and the girls go into hiding, the plot grinds to a complete halt. Suddenly everyone is trying to figure each other out, and they all play their cards so close to the chest that no one really gets anywhere until it all comes tumbling out. Multiple conversations revolve around questions like “why are you helping us?” and “what’s in it for you?” Which Holland never really has a good answer for. At one point, Molly accuses him of only wanting to help them because maybe he has a thing for crippled girls. He denies this, and then falls for her anyway because, c’mon, it’s Naomi Watts.
There are too many good actors in this thing to be as lifeless and dull as it is. J.T. Walsh and Xander Berkeley are on hand as well as a pair of shitheel cops keeping tabs on Holland. They’re the kind of smarmy caricatures that you always have to have in movies like this. In fact, I’m kind of surprised Walsh and Berkeley are wasted the way they are, too. If you had told me that Persons Unknown was originally a pilot for a crime drama on some basic cable network like USA or something, I’d probably believe you. I’d watch these people get into weird cop shenanigans week after week. As it is, though, it just never follows through on what was honestly a pretty good setup. It’s sleazy and tasteless and almost completely forgettable.
DOGTOWN
Dogtown, on the other hand, is also sleazy and tasteless, but at least has some memorable moments. This one finds director Hickenlooper trying something a little more melodramatic. Directing from his own script, Dogtown follows the return of Hollywood actor Phillip Van Horn (Trevor St. John) to his hometown of Cuba, Missouri. Everyone treats him like a celebrity, despite not knowing a single thing he’s been in. He soon admits he never made it big, merely playing an extra in a Jeff Bridges movie. This somehow gets mangled into people assuming he knows Jeff Bridges personally and asking if he can score them some weed. Regardless, he gets the seedy hick town equivalent of the red carpet rolled out for him, much to the chagrin of his old high school bully Ezra (Favreau), a tow truck driver with designs on hitting the bigtime as a Whirlpool appliance dealer. All the while, Trevor only has eyes for his old high school crush Dorothy (Mary Stuary Masterson), who just happens to be Ezra’s current on-again-off-again squeeze.
That triangle forms the backbone of the movie, but it’s really more of a loose framework for Hickenlooper to hang a series of smalltown vignettes. This is the kind of backwater town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Everyone congregates at the same social functions after work because there’s literally nothing else to do. I mean, your only movie theater closes down in the eighties (as evinced by the fact that Sixteen Candles is still on the marquee), what do you expect people to do?
Speaking of Sixteen Candles, Hickenlooper mentioned in a 1997 interview with IndieWire that he saw Dogtown as “Sixteen Candles gone bad”. I can kinda see what he means by this. This is a movie about returning to your hometown ten years out from high school to find everyone you used to know much worse off than when you left them. There are hints and flashbacks of a budding romance between Philip and Dorothy, and we see that Ezra’s dreams of becoming a basketball star never amounted to anything, but we never get a full enough picture of anyone’s past for it to really land the way it should. Plus, isn’t Sixteen Candles already kind of about the disillusionment that comes with growing older? Dogtown goes a step further and illustrates how everyone who didn’t get out of Cuba, Missouri apparently just gave up on their dreams and decided hanging around the middle of nowhere was a better use of their time. It’s depressing.
There’s also a weird little running gag about war veterans and stolen valor that I don’t fully grasp. Philip’s mom (Karen Black) presents him with a homecoming present in the form of his great-uncle’s Confederate battle saber. It’s a priceless family heirloom and she expects him to accept it graciously and be proud of it, despite the fact that it’s a Confederate battle saber. That’s not something Philip wants anything to do with; he rejects that family history. But then folks around town assume he’s some bigshot Hollywood star, and he does very little to dissuade them of this notion. He sheepishly tries to correct people that he was only an extra, but quickly gives up when he realizes they don’t care.
Meanwhile, everyone seeks the council of the town’s one actual World War II vet, Blessed William. He’s played by real life veteran Harold Russell, who lost both hands in the war. He won an Academy Award in 1947 for depicting the hardships of returning wounded veterans in The Best Years of Our Lives. In Dogtown, we find Russell very much living the best years of his life, hanging around smoking cigars and telling the young jerks around town they don’t know how good they’ve got it. I’d argue the film doesn’t get enough use out of Blessed William. Here’s a guy who’s gone and made a name for himself. He’s lived his life, he’s earned his accolades. The young people in town could learn a thing or two him, but instead they’re content to just bum cigars off of him and hang out. But that’s none of his business.
Between the two, I’m inclined to say Dogtown is the better film. It accomplishes its modest goals more thoroughly than Persons Unknown, though I still wouldn’t recommend seeking out either one of them. When Dogtown is spending time with the denizens of Cuba, Missouri, it begins to kind of sparkle. Maureen McCormick and Shawnee Smith pop up as Dorothy’s gal pals, perfectly happy bumming around town and staying out of Ezra’s bullshit. I feel like a better version of this film would find more uses for its weird cast of characters, but then I’m not here to tell anyone how to live.
THE FAVREAU DIMENSION
Favreau doesn’t have too big of a role in Persons Unknown, winding up dead on the shower floor about twenty minutes in, but Hickenlooper must have seen something in him to bring him back for Dogtown. Terry and Ezra are basically the same character: A-shirt-wearing shitheels who eventually get what’s coming to them. Dogtown gives Favreau more to work with, both literally and dramatically, but it’s clear the role doesn’t really suit him. Still, in the coming weeks we’ll see him try to make something of this tough-guy persona.
FINAL RATING(S)
PERSONS UNKNOWN: 1.5 stars (out of 5). S’pretty bad.
DOGTOWN: 2 stars (out of 5). S’not great.
NEXT TIME: Favreau’s biggest movie yet.
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