Jesus! Pardon my crankiness, but after watching this film, I feel like I’ve been preached at by my old man for the past 90 minutes…or worse – have had a load of Deepak Chopra type spiritual bullshit jammed down my throat. Gag!
Daniel’s miserable. He’s an attorney who has to deal with sorry sacks of s**t, day in and day out, who make fraudulent claims against others just so they can score themselves a fat wad of cash. Meanwhile, creditors are up his a*s and his marriage is falling apart. Daniel’s at the end of his rope, so he saddles up his ’67 Benz and hits the road, leaving his wife, his house and his thankless job behind without any kind of notice. I guess you can say that he goes on walkabout.
This is when something absolutely f*****g magical happens – all of the sudden, our miserable attorney turns into some sort of enlightened fruitcake, spreading peace and joy to those that he comes in contact with by spouting rubbish like “You’re a good soul.” I don’t know about you, but if some stranger came up to me and said that, I’d have to smack him – that’s just how it goes. And this brings me to the funniest part of the film.
While having a beer at a bar, Daniel is approached by some agro meathead who berates him for his car and starts spewing a string of over the top racial and homophobic comments. This guy hasn’t even had a drink yet and he’s already laying into complete strangers. Does this kind of bullshit actually ever happen? Anyways, Daniel quickly soothes the hateful beast with a few words and manages to rope the guy into having a drink with him. This is where Daniel flaps his trap and makes Meathead consider his hateful ways for a brief moment before he gets sick of being preached at takes off…I only wish I could’ve done the same. The next morning, Daniel awakens in his car with Meathead staring at him through his windshield. The hate monger, armed with coffee for the both of them, has returned to listen to more of Daniel’s spiel as he’s suddenly such an enlightened genius. But shortly after hearing more, he decides to kick Daniel’s a*s anyways. I’m sorry, that’s very funny to me…not that Daniel got his a*s kicked, but that it took this moron such a long time to do so, even though it was only for the purpose of squeezing in more spiritual hooey.
All the while Daniel is on his magical mystery tour, his wife is following his trail of ATM transactions and posting “Missing Person” posters of him everywhere she can. Eventually, she comes upon a few of the people that Daniel came in contact with and finds that they all feel blessed after meeting him. Their lives have been changed and they’re now on the path of the righteous or whatever. Who is this guy, fuckin’ Forrest Gump or somethin’?
The film flips back and forth between Daniel’s journey and his wife’s search, throwing in flashbacks and glimpses into Daniel’s delusional brain to keep the audience on its toes. Is Daniel a prophet sent here to teach us all how to love? Is Daniel dead and is this all some sort of “Jacob’s Ladder” afterlife journey? Is Daniel a few chicken breasts short of a bucket? Will anyone care? Probably not.
