The Movie:
Val Kilmer plays late porn superstar John Holmes (a role originally devised for Matt Dillon) in this film based on actual events in which Holmes may or may not have been involved. It's this involvement that the film focuses on, rather than Holmes' illustrious film career and eventual death from AIDS, but it still makes for very compelling viewing.
A biker named David Lind (expertly played by an almost unrecognizable Dylan McDermott from TV's The Practice) hears of the murder of four people at 8763 Wonderland Ave while sitting in a bar. He goes to the police and tells them his story.
Lind was involved with the people who were killed. Ron Launius (Josh Locus), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo) and Barbara Lee Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner) were all found dead with their heads smashed in. Someone had taken a lead pipe to each and every one of them. A fifth victim, Susan Launius (Christina Applegate) survived, but just barely.
It seems that porn star John Holmes, who was a regular around the home for the sole reason of feeding his insane cocaine habit, told them about an Arab he knew with a massive stash of money, drugs and jewelry in his home. Holmes figured he could get into the house easily enough, as he knew the Arab so well that he referred to him as 'brother.' Once in the home, he'd leave the kitchen door unlocked so that the rest of the guys could come in and rob the place.
Well, the Arab was a man known as Eddie Nash - a local crime lord with a huge drug habit and a nasty temper. Nash figures out it was Holmes who let the thieves in and threatens to kill everyone he knows if he doesn't return the favor by letting him and his thugs into their pad to that he can get his revenge.
Depending on who's side of the story you believe.
When Holmes was taken into custody, his story, that covered the same events, was very different from Lind's tale. Both men were drug addicts. Both men had some giant sized skeletons in their closed. And Holmes was known to be a compulsive liar.
Holmes claimed that he was against the idea from the start. That he warned the group about going after Nash's drugs and money because he'd find out they were responsible and have them killed. He also claimed he had nothing to do with the murders besides letting Nash and his cohorts into the crime scene – despite the fact that his finger prints were discovered on the bed post next to where one of the victims lay. Holmes had been in the place many times – maybe he had touched the bedpost earlier that day on an unrelated visit. Or maybe he held down the victim while someone smashed her head in. Or maybe he was bracing himself there while he was actually smashing her head in.
Wonderland is a stylishly directed, fast paced grim proverb about just how low the human race is able to stoop. There are no redeeming characters at all in the film (though most of them do have a sympathetic moment or two in the film, reminding us that they are human). Kilmer is in fine form as Holmes – a man who kept an underage teenage mistress (played quite well by Kate Bosworth) despite being legally married to his first wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow who does a fine job in a role about as far removed from Phoebe of Friends as one can get).
Cox does an admirable job directing the whole ordeal. What could have easily turned out a convoluted mess instead evolves at a nice pace into a tightly scripted and slick looking production that presents both sides of the story in an almost seamless transition that doesn't feel forced, or take sides.