GRIDLOCK'D
A film review by Michael Dequina
Copyright 1997 Michael Dequina
(R) *** 1/2 (out of ****)
Before his untimely death last year, rapper-actor Tupac Shakur left behind a number of completed films in the can. The first to see the light of day is Gridlock'd, the energetic and enjoyable screenwriting and directing debut of actor Vondie Curtis-Hall (Broken Arrow, TV's Chicago Hope and Cop Rock).
After his girlfriend Cookie (Thandie Newton) falls into a drug-induced coma, heroin junkie Spoon (Shakur) decides to lay off the dope, forcing his comrade-in-blow Stretch (Tim Roth) to join him in detox. This simple decision sets off an exhausting chain of events where Stretch and Spoon run around town dealing with bureaucrats of varying rigidity and flee from a drug kingpin (Curtis-Hall) and the police, who suspect the two when a fellow drug fiend and his girlfriend are murdered.
Sounds like pretty heavy stuff, and sometimes it is. But like the big heroin-themed film of last year, Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, the film is often quite funny, deftly walking the thin line between the harrowing and the hilarious. And the humor does not come out of nowhere and feel out of place; like life itself, comedy sometimes spring forth naturally from tragedy, with some inherent dark humor being found in what can be seen as the most serious of moments. But this is not to say that Curtis-Hall glosses over heroin addiction. Spoon and especially Stretch are seen for what they are--loser junkies--living in a dirty, cluttered apartment and getting into messes they could easily have avoided, often getting out through sheer luck alone (which results in some overly contrived moments). Curtis-Hall does add some interesting visual flair to the proceedings, using flashy editing and whatnot, but nothing here is as flashy as Boyle's sometimes surreal work in Trainspotting, and the entire film's look is appropriately grimy and gritty.
But even with Curtis-Hall's able efforts behind the camera, Gridlock'd could not have possibly worked without a convincing, charismatic lead duo, and Shakur and Roth fit the bill perfectly. Roth has the showier role, playing pathetic, dirty, and just plain wacky Stretch, and he pulls it off as well as one expects (even though his natural British accent sometimes slips into his on-screen New York accent). Shakur's more sensible Spoon is the straight man, but he is far from upstaged, holding his own with his confident, commanding presence; he truly had a bright future in film. Roth and Shakur's rapport is so natural, so effortless that you have no problem believing that they are longtime friends. It's too bad that a reteaming of the two is out of the question.
The pileup of films currently released amounts to one big traffic jam at movie houses, but the entertaining Gridlock'd should have no problem clearing a path to box office success.
Michael Dequina
mrbrown@ucla.edu
Visit Mr. Brown's Movie Site at http://members.tripod.com/~MrBrown/
Personal Page: http://members.tripod.com/~MrBrown/home.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews