Wonderland (film)
Encyclopedia
Wonderland is a 2003 American crime and drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 co-written and directed by James Cox
James Cox (director)
James Cox is an American film director. His short film Atomic Tabasco received an honorable mention at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and a Bronze Medal at the 1999 Student Academy Awards...

, and based on the real-life Wonderland Murders
Wonderland Murders
The Wonderland murders, also known as Four on the Floor or Laurel Canyon Murders, occurred in Los Angeles in 1981, when four people were killed in a drug-related scenario involving porn star John Holmes and was allegedly masterminded by Los Angeles businessman and drug dealer Eddie Nash.-Robbery...

 that occurred in 1981. The film stars Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...

, Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth
Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...

, Lisa Kudrow
Lisa Kudrow
Lisa Valerie Kudrow is an American actress, best known for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the television sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards...

, Dylan McDermott
Dylan McDermott
Mark Anthony McDermott , better known by his professional name of Dylan McDermott, is an American actor, known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the television legal drama The Practice and his role in the series Dark Blue as Lt. Carter Shaw. McDermott currently stars in FX...

, Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including Glory Road, A Beautiful Mind, and Poseidon.-Early life:...

, Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate is an American actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Bundy on the Fox sitcom Married... with Children. Since then, she has established a film and television career, winning a Primetime Emmy and earning Tony and Golden Globe nominations...

, and Tim Blake Nelson
Tim Blake Nelson
Tim Blake Nelson is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.-Early life:Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father...

. Kilmer plays the role of John Holmes
John Holmes (actor)
John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd , was one of the most prolific male porn stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and pornographic feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s...

, the pornographic film
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

 star, a suspected accomplice in four grisly murders committed in an apartment on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California
Laurel Canyon is a canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was first developed in the 1910s, and became a part of the city of Los Angeles in 1923 ....

 section of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.

Plot

John Holmes and Dawn Schiller
We are first introduced to the underage girlfriend of John Holmes
John Holmes (actor)
John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd , was one of the most prolific male porn stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and pornographic feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s...

 - Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth
Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...

). She is on the streets and is picked up by a holy roller
Holy Roller
Holy Roller is a term in American English used to describe Pentecostal Christian churchgoers. The term is commonly used derisively, as if to describe people literally rolling on the floor or speaking in tongues in an uncontrolled manner....

 (Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher
Carrie Frances Fisher is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. She is most famous for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge, for which she wrote the screenplay to the film of the same name, and her...

) after she and Holmes break up. She eventually calls Holmes to come and get her. Holmes arrives at the apartment and they have sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...

 and snort cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 in the bathroom. While in a motel
Motel
A motor hotel, or motel for short, is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles...

 room, Dawn sees a newscast that states four people were murdered at a rowhouse on Wonderland Avenue, the same one she had been to with Holmes before. The story eventually moves onto two city detectives (Ted Levine
Ted Levine
Frank Theodore "Ted" Levine is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in the television series Monk.-Early life and career:...

 and Franky G
Franky G
Franky G , is a Puerto Rican-American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Xavier in Saw II and Wrench in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job as well as other various roles such as Lupus in Confidence and Detective Cruz in Wonderland.-Early life and...

) investigating the crime and their contact with Holmes. Another officer (M. C. Gainey
M. C. Gainey
Michael Connor "Mike" Gainey , better known as M. C. Gainey, is an American film and television actor whose distinctive mustache, 6'2½" height, and threatening look have given him supporting roles as Southern/Southwestern types, thugs, and criminals.Gainey attended the University of Southern...

) intervenes with the investigation, himself being a colleague of Holmes.

David Lind's story
The next major character introduced is David Lind (Dylan McDermott
Dylan McDermott
Mark Anthony McDermott , better known by his professional name of Dylan McDermott, is an American actor, known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the television legal drama The Practice and his role in the series Dark Blue as Lt. Carter Shaw. McDermott currently stars in FX...

). He hears of his friends' murders at Wonderland and soon discovers his girlfriend was there. While at the crime scene, he is picked up by L.A.P.D. Detectives Nico and Cruz (representing real-life detectives in the case, Tom Lange and Bob Souza). Through Lind's story (told in flashbacks), we are introduced to some of the people who party at Wonderland. These people, known as the Wonderland Gang
Wonderland Gang
The Wonderland Gang was a group of drug dealers involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade during the late 1970s and early 1980s; their homebase was located on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon area. On July 1, 1981 four members of the gang died in the Wonderland murders...

 include Ron Launius (Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including Glory Road, A Beautiful Mind, and Poseidon.-Early life:...

), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson
Tim Blake Nelson
Tim Blake Nelson is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.-Early life:Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father...

), Lind's 22-year old girlfriend Barbara Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner
Natasha Gregson Wagner
Natasha Gregson Wagner is an American actress.Gregson Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Richard Gregson, a film producer, and the late actress Natalie Wood...

), Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...

) and Susan Launius (Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate is an American actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Bundy on the Fox sitcom Married... with Children. Since then, she has established a film and television career, winning a Primetime Emmy and earning Tony and Golden Globe nominations...

). Ron has a fondness for antique guns and quite frequently shows them off. When Ron learns that Holmes knows notorious gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....

 Eddie Nash
Eddie Nash
Eddie Nash is a former nightclub and restaurant manager in Los Angeles, as well as a convicted gangster and drug dealer; he is best known as the alleged mastermind of the Wonderland Murders.-Early life:...

 (Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...

), he gives Holmes a pair of stolen antique guns to take to Nash so that Nash can fence them and they can split the loot. Nash befriended Holmes because of Holmes' notoriety as the film phenomenon Johnny Wadd. Holmes takes the guns to Nash, but Nash says the guns are too rare to be sold; they would be recognized right away and everyone involved would be apprehended. Rather than give the guns back to Holmes, Nash keeps them for himself. Attempting to get back in the good graces of the gang, Holmes suggests robbing Nash's home. Ron is reluctant to go along with the robbery at first, but after Holmes gives him a rundown of what's there, he is quite eager for the big score. Holmes volunteers to draw them a map to plan the robbery, since he has been to Nash's house a lot. Holmes then visits Nash to buy drugs. On the way out, he leaves the door to the kitchen unlocked so the Wonderland gang can have easy access.

The robbery of Eddie Nash
The next morning, the robbery is carried out by Ronnie Launius, Lind, and Deverell, while wheel-man Tracy McCourt waits outside in a car, serving as lookout. Neither Holmes nor any of the women are present when the robbery occurs. The Wonderland Gang
Wonderland Gang
The Wonderland Gang was a group of drug dealers involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade during the late 1970s and early 1980s; their homebase was located on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon area. On July 1, 1981 four members of the gang died in the Wonderland murders...

 gains access through the unlocked kitchen door and robs Nash at gunpoint. Lind accidentally fires
Accidental discharge
Accidental discharge is the event of a firearm discharging at a time not intended by the user. Perhaps most commonly, accidental discharges occur when the trigger of the firearm is deliberately pulled for a purpose other than shooting—dry-fire practice, demonstration,...

 his gun, wounding Nash's bodyguard, Greg Diles (Faizon Love
Faizon Love
Faizon Andre Love is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for roles in the films Friday, Elf, Made, and Couples Retreat.-Life and career:...

). Racial epithets are hurled at Nash and Diles. The gang walks away with over one million dollars in cash, jewels and drugs. They bring their loot back to the Wonderland apartment to divide everything up. Holmes is unhappy with the cut he is given, even though he did not take part in the robbery. Nash finds out that Holmes helped plan the robbery. He has Holmes beaten and finds his little black book. He tells Holmes he will kill every person listed in the book, starting with his mother, if he does not give up the men who robbed him. He also threatens to cut off
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

 Holmes' penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...

, cut it into pieces, and shove it down his (Holmes') throat.

July 1, 1981
The retaliation for the robbery is swift and fatal. On July 1, 1981, a group of Nash's henchmen (including Holmes) led by Diles gain access to the apartment at Wonderland Avenue. Ron Launius, Deverell, Richardson, and Miller are all brutally beaten to death with striated lead pipes. Holmes is compelled by Diles to deliver blows to Launius. Susan Launius is beaten but not killed. She survives and is questioned by Nico and Cruz in her hospital bed. She tells them (in a near coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

tose state) that she does not remember anything—only shadows. Lind is not present during the attacks.

The robbery of Nash (in fictionalized form) features heavily in the Holmes-inspired Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is a 1997 drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, and chronicles his rise and fall from the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s...

. In that film Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1991 debut as a musician with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of...

 plays the porn star and Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...

 plays the "Nash" role.

Cast

  • Val Kilmer
    Val Kilmer
    Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...

     as John Holmes
    John Holmes (actor)
    John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd , was one of the most prolific male porn stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and pornographic feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s...

  • Kate Bosworth
    Kate Bosworth
    Catherine Ann "Kate" Bosworth is an American actress. Bosworth starred in the television series Young Americans, in which she played Bella Banks. She became known with a leading role in 2002's Blue Crush. The following year, Bosworth played the teenage girlfriend of porn star John Holmes in...

     as Dawn Schiller
  • Dylan McDermott
    Dylan McDermott
    Mark Anthony McDermott , better known by his professional name of Dylan McDermott, is an American actor, known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the television legal drama The Practice and his role in the series Dark Blue as Lt. Carter Shaw. McDermott currently stars in FX...

     as David Lind
  • Carrie Fisher
    Carrie Fisher
    Carrie Frances Fisher is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. She is most famous for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge, for which she wrote the screenplay to the film of the same name, and her...

     as Sally Hansen
  • Josh Lucas
    Josh Lucas
    Josh Lucas is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including Glory Road, A Beautiful Mind, and Poseidon.-Early life:...

     as Ron Launius
  • Christina Applegate
    Christina Applegate
    Christina Applegate is an American actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Bundy on the Fox sitcom Married... with Children. Since then, she has established a film and television career, winning a Primetime Emmy and earning Tony and Golden Globe nominations...

     as Susan Launius
  • Ted Levine
    Ted Levine
    Frank Theodore "Ted" Levine is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs and Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in the television series Monk.-Early life and career:...

     as Sam Nico
  • Tim Blake Nelson
    Tim Blake Nelson
    Tim Blake Nelson is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.-Early life:Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father...

     as Billy Deverell
  • Janeane Garofalo
    Janeane Garofalo
    Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...

     as Joy Miller
  • Natasha Gregson Wagner
    Natasha Gregson Wagner
    Natasha Gregson Wagner is an American actress.Gregson Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Richard Gregson, a film producer, and the late actress Natalie Wood...

     as Barbara Richardson
  • Faizon Love
    Faizon Love
    Faizon Andre Love is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for roles in the films Friday, Elf, Made, and Couples Retreat.-Life and career:...

     as Greg Diles
  • Lisa Kudrow
    Lisa Kudrow
    Lisa Valerie Kudrow is an American actress, best known for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the television sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards...

     as Sharon Holmes
  • M.C. Gainey as Billy Ward
  • Joel Michaely
    Joel Michaely
    Joel Michaely is an American actor and film producer.He has appeared in such films as Can't Hardly Wait, But I'm a Cheerleader, Ghost World, The Rules of Attraction, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Cruel World, Factory Girl and Itty Bitty Titty Committee. On television, Michaely has appeared in Unhappily Ever...

     as Bruce
  • Franky G
    Franky G
    Franky G , is a Puerto Rican-American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Xavier in Saw II and Wrench in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job as well as other various roles such as Lupus in Confidence and Detective Cruz in Wonderland.-Early life and...

     as Louis Cruz
  • Eric Bogosian
    Eric Bogosian
    Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent.-Personal life:Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College,...

     as Eddie Nash
    Eddie Nash
    Eddie Nash is a former nightclub and restaurant manager in Los Angeles, as well as a convicted gangster and drug dealer; he is best known as the alleged mastermind of the Wonderland Murders.-Early life:...

  • Paris Hilton
    Paris Hilton
    Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...

     as Barbie
  • Scoot McNairy
    Scoot McNairy
    Scoot McNairy is an American actor from Dallas, Texas known for roles in In Search of a Midnight Kiss , Herbie Fully Loaded , and Mr. Fix It . He also plays the lead male role in the recently released film Monsters...

     as Jack
  • John Holmes
    John Holmes (actor)
    John Curtis Holmes better known as John C. Holmes or Johnny Wadd , was one of the most prolific male porn stars of all time, appearing in about 2,500 adult loops, stag films, and pornographic feature movies in the 1970s and 1980s...

     (archive footage) as Johnny Wadd
  • Michael Pitt
    Michael Pitt
    Michael Carmen Pitt is an American actor and musician. Pitt is best known in film for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and in television for his portrayal of James "Jimmy" Darmody in the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire.-Personal life:Pitt was born in West Orange, New Jersey, the...

     (deleted scenes) as Gopher
  • Alexis Dziena
    Alexis Dziena
    -Early life :Dziena was born in New York City of Irish, Italian and Polish descent. She attended the private Saint Ann's School alongside her Bringing Rain costar, Paz de la Huerta. She spent many of her summers growing up in the small South Jersey shore town of Sea Isle City...

     as (deleted scenes) Gopher's Girlfriend

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

gave the film a mediocre review, granting it two out of four stars, and saying "True crime procedurals can have a certain fascination, but not when they're jumbled glimpses of what might or might not have happened involving a lot of empty people whose main claim to fame is that they're dead."

External links

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