Edward Norton returns to the big screen

NEW YORK - In "Down in the Valley," Edward Norton plays a deluded 21st century cowboy whose contrived Old West masculinity and aw-shucks innocence attracts a restless teenage girl who‘s desperate for something more authentic than the asphalt highways of suburban Los Angeles. "People who liked Fight Club,‘ I think will like this film a lot because on a deep psych level, it‘s about the same things," says the 36-year-old, two-time Academy Award nominee. "It‘s about fantasy as a desperate attempt to get away from the numbing banality of what the modern world confronts you at times." Norton‘s character — Harlan Fairfax Carruthers — appears to have wandered into California‘s San Fernando Valley straight out of an old John Ford Western. In one scene, he walks through bumper-to-bumper traffic imploring people to get out of their cars. He defends shouts of "You‘re crazy!" by drunkenly replying, "I‘m the only sane man on this street!" Harlan wins the heart of young Tobe ( Evan Rachel Wood ) and captivates her younger brother ( Rory Culkin ). But his identity isn‘t as genuine as it seems, and the romanticism eventually turns to tragedy. For several years, he‘s been largely absent from movie screens, but that‘s more a function of timing. "Down in the Valley," which opens in limited release Friday, was made two years ago, and Norton and director David Jacobson had to fight to secure a distributor. During a recent interview in New York, where Norton has lived for years, his tone was a little more conciliatory. "Just because you‘ve made a couple movies, you‘ve done some good movies, you‘ve been nominated for some Academy Awards , whatever — nobody‘s entitled," Norton says, half to himself. "It‘s a business. If they don‘t see it, I can think they‘re wrong, but I‘m not entitled to a $15 million budget to make a film." [More here]