Director: Wim Wenders
Starring: Michelle Williams, John Diehl, Shaun Toub, Wendell Pierce, Richard Edson, Burt Young, Yuri Elvin

- Reviewed by Linda

Seeing Wim Wenders' output since the brilliant and sublime Wings of Desire makes me wonder if critical acclaim makes a director soft. I wanted to like Land of Plenty much more than I did, which was the same response that I had to other post-Wings Wenders films like Faraway, So Close! and Until the End of the World. But frustratingly since Wings of Desire, his brilliance has only occasionally resurfaced in surprises like Buena Vista Social Club and Lisbon Story. Begrudgingly, I continue to hold out hope for him. But Land of Plenty makes it hard for me.

A commentary on post-9/11 America, Land of Plenty focuses on two divergent characters: Lana, a saintly young woman (Michelle Williams) who works at a homeless mission in the slums of Los Angeles, and Paul, her estranged uncle (John Diehl), a Vietnam vet, whose trauma has resurfaced as a result of the new War on Terror. The two are bonded together as a result of the hate-crime murder of a Muslim man in front of the soup kitchen where she works. Lana wants to track down the relatives of this homeless man, and give him the decency of being laid to rest with his family. But Paul, a guy who spends his days obsessively doing independent surveillance of the city in search for terrorists, thinks the dead man is part of a bigger conspiracy of Islamic fundamentalists planning an attack on American soil. The truth behind the dead man's past is slowly revealed on a road trip into the desert of California.

Wim Wenders, a German now living in America, obviously has a fondness for this country, and his latest films show him trying to express this. It is lazy to say that an outsider can't reveal the truth about a people, but there is something about Wenders' view of the United States that seems superficial. Diehl's character is a caricature of Vietnam vets in movies: He incessantly prattles on about the glories of the country for which he fought, but he pops pills and has sweat-soaked nightmares that are accented with a soundtrack of helicopters to drive the point home. Lara practically has a halo in return, and because of such purity, has little depth.

It is admirable to have a European director show sympathy for the American mood after 9/11, but I want more depth. I think the average American's response is less black-and-white as these two characters, and the emotion and complexity runs much deeper. Land of Plenty attempts to explore this, but is not successful. September 11th will be the subject of many more movies to come, as it should be. So, in the meantime, I'll wait to see another director give the topic a try.

The DVD release offers a commentary from director Wim Wenders, as well as a short doc (which mainly is a compilation of scenes from the film), and some negligable deleted scenes. Hearing Wenders speak about his intentions for the film, which are all good and noble, you kind of wish that the movie was as good as the one in his head. Perhaps most interesting about Land of Plenty is the fact that it came out before Michelle Williams broke into the limelight with her role in Brokeback Mountain that got her an Oscar nomination. She is the reason that Land of Plenty isn't a cliched bore, and I'm curious to see where else her interesting career may take her.

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