there are movies that pose a question in its first five minutes and spend the rest of the time trying to answer it . then there are movies that spend the whole time posing questions and try to answer it all in the last five minutes . writer-director john herzfeld's two days in the valley falls into the latter category . weaving together a grabbag of seemingly unrelated characters , herzfeld's tries very hard to keep the audience guessing with a altmanesque series of parallel stories . hitmen lee ( james spader ) and his partner dosmo ( danny aiello ) pop a guy in bed while leaving his drugged wife becky fox ( teri hatcher ) lying next to him showing the audience where on her behind she got nicely pricked . an understandeably shocked becky runs out of the house the next morning before hailing down a couple of vice cops , ( jeff daniels ) and wes ( eric stoltz ) . a murder is not vice territory , flirting with asian prostitues is , but wes would rather play inquisitive detective . meanwhile , washed-up director , teddy ( paul mazursky ) is about to end his life . but before he can do that , he must find a good home for his dog . enter nurse audrey ( marsha mason ) , who takes the dog and teddy for a ride . stuffy art dealer , allan hopper ( greg cruttwell ) has kidney stones . while struggling about his fancy house , he switches between moaning in self-pity and dropping condescending hints about his loyal secretary's ( glenne headly ) plain appearance . don't be surprised if you find yourself asking more than once just what the hell is going on . you might like that feeling of cluelessness . herzfeld does answer all the questions in the course of time and pieces it all rather neatly in the last five minutes . the jigsaw puzzle assembled isn't stunning by any means though . the characters lack the stature or moral complexity of altman's real-life heroes in short cuts , even though they are interesting and funny . funny , that is if you aren't comparing them to the likes of tarantino's pulp chcaracters . the tie-up is tidy but nowhere near the squeaky clean resolution of ( director's name ? guy who also did last seduction ) red rock west . two days isn't a bad movie but there isn't much else to it than the screenplay novelty of the linkage of seemingly unrelated characters . it'll keep you guessing alright but you won't remember the answers five minutes after the credits . the flying inkpot rating system : * wait for the tv2 broadcast . * * a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha ! * * * pretty good , bring a friend . * * * * amazing , potent stuff . * * * * * perfection . see it twice .
