*Midnight Rambler: Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello*

Though cinematographer Robert Elswit lends a little sun-dappled magic to the proceedings, and Josh Brolin’s flat-top Franken-cop with a curious predilection for chocolate-covered bananas steals the show, Inherent Vice arrives as a bit of an anomaly in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s revered oeuvre. Based on Thomas Pynchon’s patchouli-soaked end-of-an-era elegy for 60’s SoCal burnouts and deadbeats, the film adaptation is surprisingly flat-footed. Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe not. Who knows. Bottom line: It doesn’t vibrate with the moody currents that ripple through Pynchon’s book, and it even pales to Anderson mentor Robert Altman’s stab at the genre, The Long Goodbye. A legion of defenders will no doubt crane their necks to find some of that patented PTA residue from yesteryear, but unfortunately, there’s precious little to be found in this go 'round.