It's some time before Janeane Garofalo appears on screen, and it's not until then that the film becomes intermittently bearable. Only intermittently. What a bunch of unappealing, flat, poorly drawn characters! Lester is one of the most irritating people one could hope to meet, and maybe he's meant to be, but surely not in this way: he's meant to charm OTHER people, after all, yet it's hard to see how anyone could endure his presence for more than thirty seconds. Clay is remarkable as a central protagonist who spends most of the film doing absolutely nothing - the kind of person who responds to moral dilemmas by saying, "Yeah, whatever," although by giving even this description I may be reading too much into the script - and when more minor characters reveal some of their thoughts it actually comes as a bit of a shock - it was hard to think of them as having any. And what's with the title? Yes, obviously it has something to do with the fact that the central character is called "Clay", but I don't think anyone had a particular pun in mind. It makes as much sense as calling "The Third Man", say, "Lime Light". (On reflection, less sense.) A lazily conceived turkey with too many bad country-and-Western songs.
Review of Clay Pigeons
