2 Days in the Valley

2 Days in the Valley
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Herzfeld
Written by	John Herzfeld
Produced by	Herb Nanas Jeff Wald
Starring	Danny Aiello Greg Cruttwell Jeff Daniels Teri Hatcher Glenne Headly Peter Horton Marsha Mason Paul Mazursky James Spader Eric Stoltz Charlize Theron
Cinematography	Oliver Wood
Edited by	Jim Miller Wayne Wahrman
Music by	Anthony Marinelli
Production company	Rysher Entertainment
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	September 27, 1996 (1996-09-27)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$11,132,900

2 Days in the Valley is a 1996 American crime film written and directed by John Herzfeld. It depicts 48 hours in the lives of a group of people in the San Fernando Valley who are drawn together by a murder.

Plot[]

Two hitmen, Lee Woods and Dosmo Pizzo, walk into a bedroom where a sleeping couple, Olympic athlete Becky Foxx and her ex-husband Roy Foxx are in bed. Lee injects Becky with a tranquilizer then shoots Roy in the head. Lee and Dosmo then drive to an abandoned area off Mulholland Drive, where Lee shoots Dosmo and blows up the car in order to set Dosmo up as the fall guy for the murder. Lee flees the scene with his girlfriend, Helga Svelgen.

Dosmo was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived the shooting and car explosion. He seeks shelter at the mansion of wealthy art dealer, Allan Hopper where he takes Hopper and his assistant, Susan Parish hostage. Dosmo is unaware that Hopper has called his sister, Audrey Hopper a nurse, to come to the house. On her way, Audrey picks up Teddy Peppers a down-and-out TV producer contemplating suicide.

Meanwhile, Becky awakens and discovers Roy's body in bed beside her. She runs from her house and flags down two detectives, young, ambitious Wes Taylor and cynical veteran Alvin Strayer who are driving by. Although he is sympathetic, Wes begins to suspect that Becky knows more than she is saying. Becky, who had hired Lee and Dosmo to kill Roy for $30,000, was unaware that they would kill Roy in her own house. Lee goes back to the house to get the money, encounters homicide detectives Creighton and Carla Valenzuela working the crime scene, and kills them both. Wes decides to return to the crime scene to see if he can offer any insight on the case. Masquerading as one of the detectives, Lee lures Wes outside, intending to kill him.

Becky and Helga get into an argument, which escalates into a fight. After being smashed over the head with a vase by Becky, Helga reaches across the bed to grab her gun from her purse, but Becky realizes this and runs and grabs the gun as well to prevent herself from being shot. In a confused fight for the gun, Helga ends up getting shot and wounded, after which Becky escapes from the hotel with Helga shooting at her from the doorway of the room multiple times but missing with each shot. Helga finds her way to Becky's house, where Lee has knocked Wes unconscious. Lee reluctantly decides to kill Helga instead of taking her to the hospital, concluding that her wound is too severe to be treated, but his gun jams. He turns to retrieve Wes's gun but finds that Helga has escaped and has flagged down a passing car containing Dosmo and his hostages. Audrey jumps out of the car and tries to help the dying Helga, but Helga dies on the roadside.

Wes is caught in the middle of a shootout between Dosmo and Lee, and is shot in the legs. Just before Lee can kill Dosmo, Teddy shoots Lee, killing him.

A grateful Wes allows Dosmo to take the $30,000 and escape with Susan, the following day, Teddy shows up to an anniversary party that Audrey is attending. As Susan and Dosmo drive down a highway, Dosmo contemplates using the money to start a pizzeria in Brooklyn; Susan smiles and he kisses her.

Cast[]

Reception[]

The film was given mixed reviews from critics, with a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 58 reviews. Writing in The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote the film "lacks the humanity of Short Cuts or the edgy hipness of Pulp Fiction, but it is still a sleek, amusingly nasty screen debut by a filmmaker whose television credits include an Amy Fisher melodrama."^[1] Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four on his rating scale, saying that it "looks like a crime movie, but crime is the medium, not the message".^[2] Teri Hatcher's performance earned her a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress.^[3]

Music and Score[]

Jerry Goldsmith composed an original orchestral score for 2 Days in the Valley that was rejected in post-production. The released film features a rock-oriented score composed by Anthony Marinelli. Goldsmith's score was released in complete form by the soundtrack label Intrada Records in 2012.^[4] A track was used from Waterlily Acoustic's album, Mumtaz Mahal, featuring Taj Mahal, Chitravina N. Ravikiran and Vishwa Mohan Byatt.

References[]

External links[]

• 2 Days in the Valley at IMDb
• 2 Days in the Valley at Box Office Mojo