E-Mail This Article to a Friend WONDERLAND

Like the Tate/LaBianca murders before them, the notorious Wonderland murders in 1981 remain an ugly scar on the underbelly of modern Los Angeles history — both for their gruesome nature and for the purported but ambiguous involvement of fallen porn legend John "Johnny Wadd" Holmes (Val Kilmer). Wonderland is director James Cox’s gritty rendition of this tale of drugs, guns, deception, and murder. Once Holmes has ingratiated himself into both low- and high-stakes drug operations, he sets up his lumpen associates from Wonderland Avenue (Dylan McDermott, Josh Lucas, Tim Blake Nelson) to pull off a sizable robbery of his pal, drug kingpin Eddie Nash (Eric Bogosian). The crew get brutally murdered, and when the strung-out opportunist denies his role in the slaughter, he should forfeit all sympathy. But thanks to Kilmer’s compelling portrayal of Holmes’s vulnerability, need to please, and sweet devotion to jailbait girlfriend Dawn (Kate Bosworth) and estranged wife Sharon (Lisa Kudrow), he seems merely human. Although Holmes’s curious love triangle and his infamous life in hardcore beg for further exposure, Cox wisely focuses on the Wonderland events. In spite of the juicy material and the solid lead performances, however, Wonderland falls shy of wonderful.