If the name D.J. Caruso doesn’t make your film-geek sense tingle the way that, say, Ridley Scott or David Fincher does, at the moment that’s understandable.

But Caruso – a native of nearby Norwalk – seems to be making a strong bid to achieve the same level of recognition and fanboy credibility those guys enjoy, if this week’s big-budget techno-thriller Eagle Eye is any indication. While his filmography to date has mostly consisted of high-profile near-misses (Taking Lives, Two For the Money), Caruso scored big last year with the highly enjoyable Shia LaBeouf-starring thriller Disturbia, which smartly – if shamelessly – cribbed from Hitchcock’s Rear Window and displayed a real flair for slick, crowd-pleasing mainstream moviemaking. By reteaming with that film’s star – as well as its producer, Steven Spielberg – on Eagle Eye, chances are good that Caruso’s got another hit on his hands, even if his latest effort does seem to have a familiar, Enemy of the State-ish ring to it.

Myself, though, I’d have preferred that Caruso put all his newfound clout and obvious talent toward a project as strikingly original as his debut, 2002’s The Salton Sea. A drug-drenched, oddball neo-noir with no shortage of head-spinning twists and bizarro characters up its sleeve, Caruso’s first feature probably never had a chance with the general audience, but it took the kind of risks that – love the movie or hate it – at least kept it firmly out of “been there, done that” territory.

The film takes its name from a salt lake in the California desert, and stars Val Kilmer as a meth-addicted trumpet player who’s descended into a colorfully nightmarish underworld of “tweakers” and drug dealers after his wife (Chandra West) is murdered by two thugs who run a drug lab. Supposedly, he’s immersed himself in meth culture in order to track down her killers, but has instead become a full-blown tweaker himself, going on days-long benders with his loyal but equally messed-up buddy Jimmy the Finn (Peter Sarsgaard), snitching on dealers to a pair of very dirty cops (Anthony LaPaglia and Doug Hutchison), and just generally reveling in his own self-loathing.

Eventually, though, after an opening act that suggests a far less fun version of Trainspotting, Kilmer gets a clue, and the film’s flashback-filled plot gets going, drawing our hero – who’s a bit more complex a character than we’re initially led to believe – into an increasingly complex and deadly investigation that takes several satisfyingly unpredictable left turns along the way.

It’s true, The Salton Sea’s plot isn’t all that dissimilar to two other, better crime films released around the same time: Joe Carnahan’s Narc and Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Where this one makes it mark, however, is in its druggy, surreal atmosphere and a cast of supporting characters as memorably weird and creepy as any you’re likely to see in a movie not directed by David Lynch. Chief among them – and sorry I haven’t mentioned him until now – is an over-the-top villain named Pooh Bear, played with gleefully insane gusto by Vincent D’Onofrio. A desert-dwelling drug kingpin who wears a plastic prosthetic nose over the coke-ravaged face-hole where his natural one used to be, favors creatively disgusting ways (occasionally involving badgers) of punishing those who’ve ripped him off, and harbors a bizarre fascination with the Kennedy assassination, Pooh Bear is easily the weirdest and best thing in the movie, and is by himself worth seeing it for. Thankfully, though, Caruso is savvy enough to not let D’Onofrio entirely steal the show, and the rest of the cast – which includes Adam Goldberg, Deborah Kara Unger Meat Loaf, and Luis Guzman – does a fine job of keeping up with the movie’s unusual rhythms and gritty, grungy worldview. As for Kilmer, he dirties up awfully well for a former Top Gun pretty boy, and although Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s Gay Perry will always be my favorite of his many roles, this one’s up there, too.

It’s a long way from this movie to the slicker but safer trappings of blockbusters like Disturbia, and you’ve got to admire Caruso’s ability to make the jump from low-budget oddity to Spielberg-produced mega-movie. But, after Eagle Eye makes a mint at the box office, I’d love to see him focus his energies on something as small and wonderfully weird as his first film. He could even keep Shia LeBeouf in the lead role – so long as he makes him wear a fake nose.