‘Mojave’ is all talk, no tension

Starring Garrett Hedlund, Oscar Isaac, Mark Wahlberg, Walton Goggins, Fran Kranz and Louise Bourgoin. Directed by William Monahan

Rated R for language and some violence. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 33 minutes.

Bottom line: It could be a smart thriller, but it lacks tension at its core

Tom (Garrett Hedlund) is having a sincerely terrible week. The wunderkind Hollywood filmmaker dashed off to the desert in a self-destructive huff, encounted a weird drifter type named Jack (Oscar Isaac) and accidentally shot a park ranger. Not to mention, he has his producer (Mark Wahlberg) and agent (Walton Goggins) breathing down his neck, his mistress (Louise Bourgoin) won’t leave his house and now Jack’s stalking him. No wonder he’s been such an irritable jerk.

“Mojave,” from writer/director William Monahan, is one part genre thriller, one part dark Hollywood satire, and one part symbolic existential rumination on the life of an artist and the dark perils of one’s own subconscious. Occasionally, all of these parts work together quite well, but sometimes it feels like watching three different movies cut together, the tone veering wildly from scene to scene.

Monahan is an accomplished screenwriter, best known for “The Departed” and “The Gambler,” which could account for the A-list stars in what is essentially a small indie flick. Wahlberg, in fact, seems to be playing his character from “The Departed,” the shifty, champagne swilling producer a manic, Boston-accented loudmouth.

Wahlberg’s character elevates comedy in the satire, but his character is entirely incidental to the main plot, a psychological thriller revolving around Jack and Tom. Jack knows Tom’s murderous secret, and is essentially stalking him, worming his way into his life in order to become him, or at least enjoy a taste of the fame and fortune that so bedevils Tom. Hedlund is a fine counterpart to Isaac, but the rather unnecessary Hollywood subplot detracts from the central conceit.

There is real pathos and psychological complexity to be wrought from the doppelganger story of one failed artist and a successful one who wants to throw away his success, and the tension between the two. But there’s no mystery in the story — we know who did what, and who is on a collision course with whom, and there isn’t a drop of suspense. We know Jack will catch up with Tom and Tom will have to reckon with his actions. The only question that remains is how he’ll reckon with them.

Writer Monahan seems a bit too enamored of his script, which alternates between between monologues and riddles musing on existence and art, with more casual, no-frills dialogue. The film shines when the visual storytelling does the talking. The production design and cinematography are gorgeous, from sweeping desert vistas to sumptuous Hollywood homes.

“Mojave” could be a smart, taut thriller if it didn’t get in its own way with side characters that serve only to add color and take away from the central relationship. The cast is excellent, and the film looks fantastic, but there’s something rather lacking at the film’s core, a tension that gets lost in the divergences.