Set in Montana"s Big Sky country, shot in Utah, lensed by Eric Alan Edwards (cinematographer of My Own Private Idaho)--no wonder it"s hard to tell where Clay Pigeons lives, or where it"s going. A Ridley Scott protégé previously at home in commercials and videos, debuting director David Dobkin aims to deliver us into the blackly comedic badlands of neo-noir, territory mined by the likes of Red Rock West and Fargo. Pigeons launches strongly, with several cruel turns of the screw. Out target-shooting, Clay Birdwell (Joaquin Phoenix) is hit with the news that his best pal knows he"s been boffing his ur-slut wife (Georgina Cates) and could take Clay out on the spot, but chooses a creepier revenge--committing suicide in order to frame the guy who"s cuckolded him. Naturally, Clay covers up the mess, thereby opening the film"s can of very nasty worms. A slick, fast-talking cowboy (Vince Vaughn)--the funhouse-mirror-opposite of Phoenix"s sweet, slow farmboy--turns up, and a string of ugly murders begins to play out. Once Vaughn"s Lester Long is on the scene, spreading his psychotically giggling bonhomie, Dobkin"s skin-deep riff on Hitchcock"s Strangers on a Train pretty much belongs to him. The rest of the cast looks more or less like clay pigeons set up by a scattershot script: exceptions include the always-estimable Scott Wilson who transforms his caricature-prone Sheriff Mooney into a character of nuanced humanity, and Janeane Garofalo, as an urban-hip FBI agent, whose single-chick sarcasm goes down in flames when Lester unholsters those big guns of come-hither charm. John Lurie of Lounge Lizards fame contributes a distinctive score, but Elvis Presley acts as the film"s patron saint in more ways than one: Clay Pigeons" sexiest, scariest wet work is choreographed to "It"s Now or Never." --Kathleen Murphy