C

The tropes of classic cowboy movies are twisted in macabre ways in David Jacobson’s contemporary anti-western “Down in the Valley.” The appearance in present-day L.A. of a mysterious stranger garbed as if he’d just rode in from the range, who insinuates himself into the life of a local family, is a perverse take on the “Shane” template, mixed up with the hardy perennial about the strong, silent man who rouses himself to protect the homestead against intruders. And the denouement, in which the fellow is trying to flee on a horse through a modern subdivision, calls to mind the close of Kirk Douglas’ late entry in the genre, “Lonely Are the Brave” (1962). But in the end all the myth-breaking doesn’t amount to much more than a fancy, pretentious retelling of James Foley’s 1996 teen “Fatal Attraction” flick, “Fear.”

Of course, this film has one thing that Foley’s didn’t: an extraordinary young actor in the lead. Foley had to settle for Mark Wahlberg; Jacobson has Edward Norton, who drawls and aw-shucks his way compellingly through the role of Harlan Carruthers, an ostentatiously rustic dude who stands out like a sore thumb when he appears among the normal folk of the San Fernando Valley, where he catches the eye of rebellious teen Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) when she and her friends stop by a gas station on their way to the beach. She’s fascinated by him and soon they’ve become a couple, much to the concern of the girl’s father Wade (David Morse), a security guard and stern disciplinarian trying to do right as a single dad. The situation that develops is sort of the reverse of “The Night of the Hunter.” The children, Tobe and her young brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin), are convinced that Harlan’s back-story about being a cowpoke just arrived from ranching in South Dakota is true and are attracted by his combination of old-fashioned courtliness, easy-going self-reliance and rugged strength; but the adult immediately senses something wrong and considers the fellow duplicitous and threatening.

For a time Jacobson keeps us wondering about which perception is the true one, so it wouldn’t be fair to say who’s right. Suffice it to say that the truth about Harlan’s background is eventually revealed, though without the degree of psychological insight that would make the long (two-hour-plus) journey worthwhile. Norton of course is an actor of consequence, always fascinating to watch even in material as labored as this script often is; he overdoes the homespun quality more than a little, and even he can’t pull off a sequence in which he acts out old western gunfights in his motel room or another that’s a riff on Robert De Niro’s “You talking to me?” bit from “Taxi Driver.” Wood and Culkin are very good as well, with the latter again using his natural passivity to excellent effect and working nicely with Norton. But Morse, fine actor though he may be, never gets much past the one-dimensional. Among the supporting cast Bruce Dern stands out as an ornery coot whose horses Harlan occasionally takes out for a ride, and for whom he claims to have worked. There’s a gritty naturalness to Enrique Chediak’s widescreen cinematography that uses the locations decently enough without ever achieving the sort of hallucinatory quality that might have suited the story better.

It’s understandable that “Down in the Valley” should have attracted an actor of Norton’s virtuosity so strongly that he would also serve as one of the film’s producers. But in this case his taste for something different has led him astray, because while the picture gives him ample opportunity to exhibit his dexterity, ultimately it neither strikes a deep emotional chord nor makes a coherent point. It’s an interesting misfire that unfortunately flames out well before the inevitable final shoot-out.