The Big Empty (2003 film)

The Big Empty is a 2003 comedy film directed and written by Steve Anderson. It stars Jon Favreau as a struggling actor with a bizarre request from his neighbor to deliver a suitcase that he cannot open. While there, he meets an unusual cast of characters, and starts to think this delivery might be more than it seems.

Plot
John Person is a struggling actor in Los Angeles who is $28K in debt. His neighbor Neely offers him $25K to take a gun and deliver a blue suitcase to "Cowboy" in Baker. Person initially refuses but accepts when Neely reveals he has detailed personal information on Person and raises the offer to cover his debts.

In a Baker hotel, Person misses a man in a cowboy outfit. While getting a drink, he is immediately held at gunpoint by Randy, who thinks Person is after his girlfriend Ruthie. She comes to Person's room later, returning his dropped wallet, and they hit it off. In a diner the next day, Person meets Dan, who tells many strange tales and conspiracy theories about the desert. Person meets Ruthie outside a gas station, buys her alcohol, and they drive to Devil's Crest lakebed outside town. As they get drunk, he hears stories about disappearing people. Person drives Ruthie home when she gets sick and passes out.

Going back to the motel, Person again misses Cowboy, who left him a bowling ball bag addressed to Neely that he is not allowed to open. Person's friend Grace calls to tell him Neely was beheaded, and FBI agent Banks is looking for him. Person fears Neely's head is in the bag. Candy, a hooker, comes to Person's room curious about his meeting with Cowboy and warns him that Cowboy may be responsible for the disappearance of three strippers from Las Vegas. Later, Randy threatens to kill him if he talks to Ruthie again. The next day, Person buries the bag. Stella, the owner of a bar, reveals she rescued Ruthie from the Devil's Crest when Ruthie was a child. At Stella's bar, Banks tries to link Person to Neely's murder and 75 mysterious disappearances from Baker.

Person sees Randy has stolen his suitcase. He drives to a junkyard with his gun, finding Randy has tied Ruthie up. During an armed standoff, Person convinces Randy to let Ruthie and him go by threatening to shoot her. Later, Ruthie comes to Person's room to tell him Randy was arrested, and they have sex. Randy kidnaps Person, but before Randy can shoot him, Cowboy shoots Randy. Going back to the motel, Person finds suitcases stacked in his room. Cowboy tells him to drive them to the Devil's Crest lakebed. When Person refuses, Cowboy takes Grace hostage. Person goes to Devil's Crest and meets Bob the Indian, who tells him where and how to arrange the suitcases and leaves.

Cowboy arrives with a group in blue tracksuits, similar to Neely's, including Ruthie. Cowboy pulls out a pair of size-11 bowling shoes from the bag. Cowboy offers them to Person as a chance to come with him to Paradise. When he refuses, Cowboy gives them to Ruthie. She excitedly invites Person, but he declines. Cowboy shoots a flare. Cowboy insists he is simply a cowboy, even as his skin turns blue and translucent. As the flare explodes, Person blacks out. Person awakens alone on the dry lakebed. All of the suitcases are empty except for a locked one nearby. Frustrated, he takes it and walks to the highway. Grace meets him and says he has been missing for three days. She gives him a key from Cowboy, and he finds his $28K in the case.

Back in Los Angeles, Banks interrogates Person. Unable to tell the truth to the families of those disappeared, Banks invents a story. Person sees a band-aid on Banks' neck, similar to the one that appeared on his own neck after Devil's Crest, relating to one of Dan's conspiracy theories. As Person and Grace go on a date at a bowling alley, she congratulates him for getting a supporting role in a film. She quotes Cowboy with bright blue eyes. Person, wearing size-11 shoes, rolls a ball down the alley; his eyes turn bright blue, too. The bowling ball rolls across the vast moonlit Devil's Crest. Far in the distance white flames, like the Cowboy's flare, rise from the desert floor.

Cast

 * Jon Favreau as John Person; an out-of-work actor, and the story's protagonist. He keeps waiting for callbacks from "promising auditions" and hangs a number of his headshots on the wall wherever he goes. He is like the story's everyman, reacting rather seriously and deadpan to his situations. John Person is his stage name, and his real name is never revealed. His favorite drink is a gin and tonic.
 * Joey Lauren Adams as Grace; John's friend, who lives across the hall from him. She is slightly nerdy, but is cheery and supportive of John's acting career.
 * Bud Cort as Neely; John's strange neighbor. He is stocky and squirrely, and wears a neck brace for an unknown reason (John and Grace gossip about why he is wearing it). He is the one who convinces John Person to deliver the suitcase to Baker, California. John finds him rather creepy, and Neely somehow knows more than he should about John.
 * Jon Gries as Elron; the manager of the Royal Hawaiian Motel in Baker. He is irritatingly peppy and offers John a complimentary hooker and comes into his motel room every morning to wake him up and offer him breakfast. John usually refuses and Elron usually sits in the room and eats them himself. Later, he is found to have a steel plate in his head.
 * Daryl Hannah as Stella; the bartender at the local bar. She is an easygoing, urbane woman who helps John out.
 * Rachael Leigh Cook as Ruthie; Stella's adopted daughter. She is somewhat of a "bad girl", with a high alcohol tolerance and a heavily opinionated attitude, but she also has a sweet side. She wants to leave Baker to see the world, and is attracted to John's good and supportive nature.
 * Adam Beach as Randy; Ruthie's boyfriend. He has an obsession with Ruthie, and reacts violently if anyone so much as looks at her. He is psychopathic and threatens to kill John, first with a chainsaw and later with a shotgun.
 * Brent Briscoe as Dan; a trucker who is always at the diner with John Person, and rambles on about conspiracy theories such as how the government is building a bullet train so "they can get people liquored up and fire them out into the desert" so they do not notice the numerous UFO sightings around Baker. Some of his conspiracy theories turn out to offer interesting insights on the story's details.
 * Sean Bean as Cowboy; a mysterious person to whom John Person needs to deliver the suitcase. Cowboy is only alluded to for most of the movie as "the guy with a big, black duster and black Stetson". He is a classic cowboy (despite his English accent) with a gravelly voice and tough attitude. His role, though, is much more strange; his job is to gather up people to be taken away by aliens at a "jump point" outside Baker.
 * Kelsey Grammer as Agent Banks; an FBI agent who suspects John has a role in the unusual occurrences in Baker. He has a certain fast-talking wit and grandiosity about himself, possibly for the use of "good cop" interrogation. He may also have been involved in what is going on in Baker.
 * Gary Farmer as Indian Bob; a sarcastic Native American who guides John Person to the "jump point" in the dry lake bed, instructs him what to do, and offers him homespun wisdom about making the most out of life.
 * Melora Walters as Candy; a hooker who works for the motel where John Person is staying, as a complimentary service to the guests. She is a bit of an airhead, but she offers important information about Cowboy's motives.

Locations
The Big Empty was all shot on location in Los Angeles and Baker, California, which is a real town in southern California where most of the story takes place. Many of its locations are real, including the Royal Hawaiian Motel. Several landmarks in Baker are also shown, including the world's tallest thermometer. The Alto Nido apartments where John Person is living are the same ones where William Holden lived in the beginning of Sunset Blvd. All the bowling scenes were filmed at the famous Hollywood Star Lanes in Hollywood. It has since been demolished.

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 71% based on reviews from 7 critics.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, saying it "Has a seductive easiness (which may not be for everyone, but it works), a laid-back yet ever-so-slightly portentous score and a wonderful sense of place." Chuck Wilson of L.A. Weekly wrote: "More amiable than laugh-out-loud funny, the film pokes along, buoyed by the motel's bright Hawaiian color scheme, and a moonlit desert finale that's awfully pretty." Robert Koehler of Variety wrote: ""Hobbled by uninspired stabs at cleverness and surreal narrative curlicues, The Big Empty goes nowhere, replete with a question mark of an ending that isn't worth answering."