A One Mann’s Movies review of “Val” (2021).
Another of my Australia-flight films, “Val” is not the sticky-back-plastic biopic of Valerie Singleton all Brits have longed for, but an intimate and thoughtful autobiography of the actor Val Kilmer. It’s available to stream (e.g. on Amazon Prime).
Bob the Movie Man Rating(s):
Plot Summary:
Actor Val Kilmer trawls through his extensive archive of home videos, looking back at his life, career and the impact of his throat cancer.
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Val Kilmer, Jack Kilmer, Mercedes Kilmer, Joanne Whalley.
Directed by: Ting Poo & Leo Scott.
“Val” Review:
Positives:
- Watching someone’s home movies for nearly 2 hours sounds like a terrible night in, huh? Actually, no. Not when that person is Val Kilmer, who obsessively kept thousands of hours of videos. These feature early movie-making experiments with his brothers as well as on-stage and on-set footage of his roles during his career. He must have been a real nightmare to have on a film set: once or twice the irritation of the director comes through, and notably some footage featured some of the acrimonious spats he had over his interpretation of “the craft”.
- The film contains surely one of the earliest filmed appearances of Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn, who Kilmer worked with as students on the New York stage. Fascinating stuff.
- It would have been easy for Kilmer to present a self-sanitised view of his life, but he doesn’t shirk from the unpleasant and tragic stuff: the death of his brother Wesley; the divorce from Joanne Whalley-Kilmer; his diagnosis of throat cancer. The latter is beautifully played out, with his son, Jack, doing the voiceovers on the film in lieu of his dad. And it’s a master stroke that Jack is reading the lines aloud for the first time, delivering some genuinely moving moments which the directors manage to capture in the recording studio.
Negatives
- I could personally have done with less of the footage around his mother’s death, edging the film more towards 90 minutes rather than the current 109 minutes.
Summary Thoughts on “Val”:
Val Kilmer is certainly an iconic actor: he’s appeared in some classic films (“Top Secret”, “Top Gun”, “The Doors”, “Tombstone”, “Batman Forever”) as well as a whole lot of dross (some of which, e.g. “The Snowman”, I positively hated!). And he is someone with a reputation for being “difficult to work with” at times. This documentary shows some of that but also a softer side of a man maturing with age and life’s brickbats.
But this is an intriguing documentary and a recommended watch. It’s just a shame, in some ways, that the final cut happened before his role in “Top Gun: Maverick” could be featured. His interplay with Tom Cruise brought out the best acting from Cruise in years, and actually had me welling up.
Trailer for “Val”:
The trailer is here: https://youtu.be/f__e3b-idHI .
