See what actor Kilmer wants you to see in “Val”

Above: Val Kilmer famously played Doc Holiday in the 1993 Western "Tombstone." (Photo/Buena Vista Pictures)

Movie review: "Val," directed by Ting Poo and Leo Scott, featuring Val Kilmer, Jack Kilmer. Screening through Thursday at the Magic Lantern Theatre. Streaming on Amazon Prime beginning Friday.

Some of the first feelings we humans tend to experience involve those that question reality. How many of us have, as children, stood in front of a mirror and asked, “Who am I?”

Even at the age of 61, the actor Val Kilmer asks the same question. And as the documentary feature titled simply “Val” makes clear, he’s still looking for an answer.

Co-directed by filmmakers Ting Poo and Leo Scott, “Val” is more than a mere bio-pic, more than a review of a movie star’s life as told by those who knew him best. It’s a self-examination, conceived both as a look back and as a meditation on what made Kilmer the character he remains to this day.

Not that the man of today is the same boy who grew up in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, dreaming of becoming a working actor. That boy, the middle of three brothers, was a born performer – but he always felt that his younger brother, Wesley, was more talented, certainly more imaginative.

Kilmer’s life changed, though, first when his parents divorced and then, later, when Wesley drowned in the family jacuzzi during an epileptic seizure. By then, Kilmer was already a student at the prestigious New York performing-arts school Juilliard. And if we can believe what Kilmer has to say, those events – but especially Wesley’s death – still affect him.

I say “if we can believe” because from the beginning, Kilmer confesses that he is an actor, i.e., a person who pretends to be someone else for a living. So what he’s willing to reveal about himself may not be the complete truth.

Or at least it’s the truth as he perceives it. And we have to take him at his word because other than Kilmer and his two children – Jack and Mercedes, both from his marriage to the actress Joanne Whalley – no one else makes more than a brief appearance. And even when such luminaries as Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Kelly McGillis and Marlon Brando do appear, they show up mostly through the mass of archival footage taken by Kilmer himself on the sets of the 80-some movies in which he’s starred.

As for his children, only son Jack – an actor himself – has a prominent role. It is he who reads the film’s narration, written by Kilmer. And he does it in a voice that, obviously intentionally, sounds a lot like his dad’s. Which is only natural because Kilmer, having endured a couple of bouts with throat cancer, no longer can speak naturally. In fact, his voice is barely a croak.

And so with Jack reading, we have Kilmer guiding us through his childhood, his first theatrical experiences, his being lured to Hollywood to star in the comedy “Top Secret!” before hitting it big in 1986’s “Top Gun.” From there, he starred as the doomed Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “The Doors” and as the equally doomed Doc Holiday in the 1993 Western “Tombstone.”

Which likely was his career high point. Because in 1995 he accepted the title role in the critically hammered “Batman Forever,” and despite some decent performances in subsequent films such as “Heat,” David Mamet’s “Spartan” and the neo-noir “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,”– and the occasional controversy, such as the flap with director John Frankenheimer on the set of “The Island of Doctor Moreau” – Kilmer’s career as a leading man was basically over.

In recent years, burdened by debt that forced him to sell some beloved New Mexico property, he’s taken to attending conventions such as San Diego’s Comic-Con. And he admits to feeling conflicted, happy to mingle with fans yet also humbled by the need for it.

All of this, the highs and lows of his life, are covered poignantly in “Val.” And if Kilmer himself still has no real answer as to who he ultimately is, the fact that he lets the filmmakers portray the aging physical wreck he has become – in contrast to the hunky presence he once was – makes it clear that he has no problem giving us a glimpse so that we can decide for ourselves.

An edited version of this review was broadcast previously on Spokane Public Radio.