History Film / InherentVice

* TheOner: The showy [[EpicTrackingShot Epic Tracking Shots]] that have been in every other film of P.T. Anderson's career are absent from this one, but he does have two long takes. The RomanticRain scene with Doc and Shasta (see below) is a long dolly shot. And later in the film, the scene where Shasta seduces Doc runs about six minutes without a cut.

* ShesGotLegs: Shasta Fay Hepworth, played by the [[StatuesqueStunner 5'11"]] Katherine Waterston.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Virtually every character has a bizarre name, as a Pynchon staple. Examples include "Doc" Sportello, "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, Mickey Wolfmann and Riggs Warbling.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Somewhere towards the middle, which is unusual for Anderson's usually cynical movies. In the end, corporate and government corruption are systemically bringing the idealistic 60s to an end, but pretty much all of its likable counterculture protagonists come out alive and happy (or at least in no worse shape than they were before).

* KudzuPlot: You're supposed to feel utterly overwhelmed by the amount of story, conspiracies and LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: There are approximately 8,479 speaking parts in the film.

* UnrevealAngle: Hope Harlington hands Doc a photo of her breasts (which have been made hairy by the drugs she took), which causes him to scream in shock, but we don't see it.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Virtually every character has a bizarre name, as a Pynchon staple. Examples include "Doc" Sportello, "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, Mickey Wolfmann and Riggs Warbling, though many could just as easily qualify as UnfortunateNames.

* UnfortunateNames: Lots, unless you consider them to be an AwesomeMcCoolname. Examples include Rudy Blatnoyd, Puck Beaverton and Buddy Tubeside.

* ShoutOut: Many characters greet the main character with, "What's up, Doc?"

* NiceGuy: In contrast to many [[PrivateDetective private detectives]] found in {{Noir}}, Doc is affable and courteous to almost everybody he encounters and genuinely cares for Shasta and Coy's well-beings.

* SpiritualSuccessor: A DeconstructiveParody of the neo-noir genre that stars a sleazy, pot-smoking slacker (whose nickname begins with a "D") who gets roped into a KudzuPlot involving a bunch of [[GenreRefugee Genre Refugees]]. [[Film/TheBigLebowski Sound familiar?]]

* OminousLegalPhraseTitle: The legal deinition of inherent vice is "an exclusion found in most property insurance policies eliminating coverage for loss caused by a quality in property that causes it to damage or destroy itself."

* {{Narrator}}: Joanna Newsom's character Sortilège provides narration, although it isn't all that helpful in explaining the plot.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismAndCynicism: Somewhere towards the middle, which is unusual for Anderson's usually cynical movies. In the end, corporate and government corruption are systemically bringing the idealistic 60s to an end, but pretty much all of its likable counterculture protagonists come out alive and happy (or at least in no worse shape than they were before).

* NiceGuy: In contrast to many PrivateDetectives found in {{Noir}}, Doc is affable and courteous to almost everybody he encounters and genuinely cares for Shasta and Coy's well-beings.

* HoistedByHisOwnPetard: [[TheHeavy Puck Beaverton]] [[spoiler:receives the lethal injection of Golden Fang heroin he intended to use on Doc, courtesy of the little hippie PI himself]].