Clay Pigeons (1998)

The cool, calculating serial killer is a definitive character of the past century’s American cinema, no more so than the murderously suave, amoral sociopath played by Vince Vaughn in Clay Pigeons (1998). A black but not bleak comedy set in the dive bars, rusting pickup trucks, and failing farmhouses of Montana, Clay Pigeons weaves a diverting web of betrayal, confused loyalty, misplaced suspicion, and unwarranted trust. Clipped and cryptic is the delivery of pert pepper pot Janeane Garofolo as an FBI agent who can’t shake the notion that something about smooth, plausible Vince Vaughn is as queer as a Montana steer in a San Francisco bathhouse.