Stoner detective Phoenix searches for his missing ex-girlfriend, and gets dragged into a complicated web of kidnapping and drug smuggling full of oddball characters.

Somewhat overlong, and like all P. T. Anderson films at times teetering on the brink of pretentiousness, nonetheless comes out a winner and doing the near-impossible, making a successful movie out of a Pynchon novel. Both the book and the film havea lot of affinities with Raymond Chandler's writing. Both are on the surface detective novels, but use that as a framework to explore deeper things. Both use weirds cults, corrupt cops and odd, shady hospitals with unhealthy cures to explore the themes of paranoia and reality. The only difference is that those tihngs are a bit more important in this decade, when the government and the police have dropped any pretence of being "for the people."

Great soundtrack and some wonderfully deadpan comic moments. Some people have remarked there's too much talking in this film, but maybe those people need to stop checking their cell phones and concentrate for five minutes. This is definitely a film that rewards close attention.