By Robert Scucci
| Published
There’s not a single character who I relate to more than Jon Favreau’s John Person in 2003’s The Big Empty for one very specific reason. He goes out of his way, potentially risking his life, to deliver a mysterious suitcase that he’s not allowed to open to what’s assumed to be a very dangerous man, for the meager sum of $28,000 dollars. The reason I felt seen by John Person is because he could have asked for any sum of cash, but he just wants to pay off his credit-card debt so he could get a fresh start in his pursuit of an acting career.
I think a lot of people relate to John Person because most of us in a similar financial situation would consider $28,000 to be a life-altering amount of money, but aren’t so greedy that we would ask for a million dollars if we could just knock out the rest of of our student loans and car payments and move on with our lives. In other words, The Big Empty travels into some pretty unbelievable territory, but the initial offer that gets things moving seems so plausible that the movie stays grounded despite its willingness to occupy such an uncanny valley (otherwise known as Baker, California).
Your Classic “Bag Man” Story
Separating itself from thrillers like The Bag Man and slapstick comedies of error like 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, The Big Empty doesn’t necessarily have a sinister setup, and it doesn’t seem like much is at stake. We’re first introduced to John Person, a struggling Los Angeles actor who lives in squalor after having sold all of his furniture, as he has no steady income to make good on his rent, which he’s chronically late in paying. Everything changes for John when his eccentric neighbor, Neely (Bud Cort), makes an offer he can’t refuse: he has to deliver a blue suitcase to Baker, California to a man named Cowboy, for the exact amount of money that he needs to become debt free.
A master negotiator, John is able to get $100 in expense money in the form of a per diem in The Big Empty, as well as his back rent paid so he can have a fresh start upon his return.
Arriving in Baker, John meets a number of colorful characters, like motel manager Elron (Jon Gries), who overstays his welcome and offers the most pathetic room service you’ve ever seen, Stella (Daryl Hannah), the local bartender, her daughter, Ruthie (Rachael Leigh Cook), and her abusive boyfriend, Randy (Adam Beach), who is willing to harm anybody who even looks at Ruthie because he’s incredibly possessive and feels threatened by anybody who has the potential to compromise his relationship.
Nowhere to be found, unfortunately, is Cowboy (Sean Bean), who by all reports is a violent, gun-wielding psychopath who disappears as quickly as he arrives, scaring the crap out of the locals each and every time.
The Investigation
John’s trip to Baker in The Big Empty should by all means be conflict free, but Ruthie takes a liking to his down-to-Earth personality, and she also recognizes him from the small role he had on TV years ago. This doesn’t sit well with Randy, who’s so insecure that he ties her up in a junkyard after learning how they spent the previous night drinking together even though their meetup was totally innocent and platonic.
Meanwhile, Agent Banks (Kelsey Grammer), approaches John at the bar, as he has reason to believe that he’s a person of interest in dozens of disappearances in the Baker area, as well as the death of Neely, who was found beheaded back in Los Angeles.
Trying to clear his name, deliver the suitcase to the ever-elusive Cowboy, not get killed by Randy, all while falling in love with Ruthie in the process, John’s situation in The Big Empty gets weirder by the minute because we don’t really see any overtly supernatural occurrences at this point. But everything about Baker, California seems off, which is explained through a number of conspiracy theories as told by Dan (Brent Briscoe), one of the locals who’s always at the diner who has reason to believe that the disappearances and Cowboy’s presence can be explained by alien activity in the area despite the fact that he has no definitive proof.
A Delightfully Weird Series of Encounters
The Big Empty is one of those movies that will keep you guessing because nothing makes sense until everything finally clicks in its third act. Normally, I’m not a fan of movies that have a “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened,” kind of structure, but it works so well in this instance because of how likeable each character is (except for Randy, he’s a jerk). Never fully knowing what’s at stake because we don’t know what’s in Cowboy’s suitcase, The Big Empty earns its keep through its character development, as well as the natural on-screen chemistry between Jon Favreau and Rachael Leigh Cook.
Never afraid to wear its inherent weirdness on its sleeve, The Big Empty is the strangest underdog story you’ll see on streaming because it never fully reveals the nature of Jon Person’s mission until it finally arrives at its open-ended conclusion, still leaving you with unanswered questions.
If you’re willing to ride along with John and the strange group of citizens he continually encounters to solve the mystery of the blue suitcase, then you can stream The Big Empty for free on Tubi as of this writing.
