The Caveman's Valentine (2001, R)

I had added this movie to my instant queue because the cover looked interesting and I had no idea what it was about.  It turns out the title comes from the main character named Romulus Ledbetter who lives in a cave in new york, who people call The Caveman (he insists he's "Not homeless! I live in a cave."), and he finds a dead body outside his cave on Valentine's Day.  So it's a murder mystery in which the "detective" is a loud, ranting, crazy, homeless man.  Played by Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes On A Plane)!  It's awesome!  But seriously, it was a surprisingly good deceive story in which he struggled to get to the bottom of the case despite his difficult mental state.  And as you'll find in many good detective stories, the authorities don't want to cooperate or take the protagonist seriously (in this case, because he's literally crazy).  Btw, I haven't seen a movie in while in which Jackson consistently yelled as much as here (Star Wars and Pulp Fiction, which I watch on occasion, both have plenty of his quietly menacing variety).  The best part of the film was that, because it's from his point of view, we get to see his hallucinations.  And it's not always obvious that it was a hallucination until after something else happens.  One scene about halfway in was filmed in black and white and was actually very beautiful.  Anthony Michael Hall (Weird Science, The Deadzone television series) played a local rich businessman who appeared in a couple scenes, and though a decent guy still had elements that caricatured 1990's(ish) rich New York businessmen.

The story partly reminded me of The Soloist (2009) in that Romulus is a clever schizophrenic former Juliard student who would rather live outside than in a homeless shelter.  If The Caveman's Valentine did not predate The Soloist, I might have suspected a lack of originality (in part); The Soloist is also free from suspicion because it is based on a true story; both are based on books.  Also of note is that Sam Jackson and Danny DeVito are among the roughly a dozen producers on this flick.

Overall I liked the detective structure and story they told, and the creative twist of the main character's insanity just made it better.  I recommend this movie if you like detective stories, creative twists on the way a story is told, or Samuel L. Jackson (who I think was just a logical choice for this role).  This film is no longer available for streaming via Netflix, but can still be gotten by the DVD version.