Inherent Vice (film)

Inherent Vice is a 2014 American stoner crime film about a stoner hippie and private eye in 1970, as he becomes embroiled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld, while investigating three cases interrelated by the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend and her wealthy boyfriend.
 * Directed and written by, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon.

Larry "Doc" Sportello



 * "C'est la vie" — Que se-fucking sera sera.

Sortilège

 * She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn't seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe & the Fish t-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she swore she'd never look.


 * Back when they were together she could go weeks without anything more complicated than a pout. Now she was laying some heavy combination of face ingredients on Doc that he couldn't read at all.


 * Doc ran through all the things he hadn't asked Shasta. Like how much she'd come to depend on Wolfmann's guaranteed level of ease and power? And least askable of all, how passionately did she really feel about old Mickey? Doc knew the likely reply, "I love him", what else? With the unspoken footnote that the word these days was being way too overused.


 *  "Inherent vice" in a maritime insurance policy is anything that you can't avoid. Eggs break, chocolate melts, glass shatters, and Doc wondered what that meant when it applied to ex-old-ladies


 * Was it possible that at every gathering, concert, peace rally, love-in, be-in, freak-in, here up north, back east, where ever, some dark crews had been busy all along reclaiming the music, the resistance to power, the sexual desire from epic to everyday? All they could sweep up for the ancient forces of greed and fear? Gee he thought... I don't know.


 * [about the police station] On principle he tried to spend as little time around the glass house as possible. All this strange alternative cop history and cop politics, cop dynasties, cop heroes and evil doers, saintly cops and psycho cops, cops too stupid to live and cops too smart for their own good, insulated by secret loyalties and codes of silence from the world they'd all been given the control.


 * Well Mornin' Sam, like a bad luck planet in today's horoscope, here's the old hippie-hating mad dog himself in the flesh: Lieutenant Detective Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen. SAG member, John Wayne walk, flat top of Flintstone proportions and that evil, little shit-twinkle in his eye that says Civil Rights Violations.

Other

 * Denis: Like Godzilla says to Mothra man, let's go eat some place.

Dialogue

 * Sortilège: [Narrating] If it's a quiet night out at the beach and your ex-old lady suddenly out of nowhere shows up with a story about her current billionaire-developer boyfriend, and his wife, and her boyfriend, and a plot to kidnap the billionaire and throw him in a loony bin...
 * Shasta Fay Hepworth: [approaches Doc] I need your help, Doc.
 * Sortilege: [continues narrating] Maybe you should just look the other way. … But if you're Doc, it may all start to get a little peculiar after that...


 * Shasta Fay Hepworth: It isn't what you're thinking, Doc.
 * Doc Sportello: Don't worry. Thinking comes later. What else?


 * Jade: Hi, I'm Jade. Welcome to Chick Planet Massage! Please take a look at today's Pussy Eater's special which is good all day until closing time.
 * Doc Sportello: How much is it?
 * Jade: $14.95.
 * Doc Sportello: Errr, not that $14.95 ain't a totally groovy price, but I'm really trying to locate this guy who works for Mr. Wolfmann?
 * Jade: Oh, does he eat pussy?
 * Doc Sportello: A fella by the name of Glenn Charlock?
 * Jade: Oh sure, Glenn! He comes in here. He eats pussy!


 * Dr. Threeply: Any questions?
 * Doc Sportello: [about Puck Beaverton] Is that a swastika on that man's face?
 * Dr. Threeply: No, it isn't. That's an ancient Hindu symbol meaning "all is well". It brings good fortune, luck and well-being.


 * Doc Sportello: How would I forget something like that?
 * Deputy D.A. Penny Kimball: Grass. And who knows what else?
 * Doc Sportello: I'm only a light smoker.
 * Deputy D.A. Penny Kimball: How many joints have you had today?
 * Doc Sportello: I have to check the logbook.


 * Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd: Ms. Fenway may appear a little psychotic today.
 * Denis: Groovy.
 * Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd: What?
 * Denis: It's groovy being insane man, where you at?


 * Hope Harlingen: I had just run into this bathroom stall without checking first, and I already had my finger down my throat to vomit up this big balloon of dope I had just scored, and there Coy sat, gringo digestion, about to take this giant shit. And we both let go at the same time, and there's just vomit and shit all over the place, and- put my head in his lap, and to complicate things, he had this hard-on.
 * Doc Sportello: Sure.
 * Hope Harlingen: One thing leads to another, and we pretty much started shooting up together on a regular basis.

Cast

 * Joaquin Phoenix - Larry "Doc" Sportello
 * Josh Brolin - Det. Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen
 * Owen Wilson - Coy Harlingen
 * Katherine Waterston - Shasta Fay Hepworth
 * Reese Witherspoon - Deputy D.A. Penny Kimball
 * Benicio del Toro - Sauncho Smilax, Esq.
 * Jena Malone - Hope Harlingen
 * Joanna Newsom - Sortilège
 * Jordan Christian Hearn - Denis
 * Hong Chau - Jade
 * Jeannie Berlin - Aunt Reet
 * Maya Rudolph - Petunia Leeway
 * Michael K. Williams - Tariq Khalil
 * Michelle Sinclair - Clancy Charlock
 * Martin Short - Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd
 * Sasha Pieterse - Japonica Fenway
 * Martin Donovan - Crocker Fenway
 * Eric Roberts - Michael Z. "Mickey" Wolfmann
 * Serena Scott Thomas - Sloane Wolfmann
 * Yvette Yates - Luz
 * Andrew Simpson - Riggs Warbling
 * Jefferson Mays - Dr. Threeply
 * Keith Jardine - Puck Beaverton
 * Peter McRobbie - Adrian Prussia
 * Sam Jaeger - Agent Flatweed
 * Timothy Simons - Agent Borderline