GRIDLOCK'D (R)
Director: Vondie Curtis Hall
Stars: Tim Roth, Tupac Shakur, Thandie Newton, Vondie Curtis Hall, Tom Towles, Charles Fleischer, Howard Hesseman, John Sayles, James Pickens jr, Eric Payne
Running Time: 86 minutes.
An original and occasionally disturbing take on the
decay and urban malaise gripping America,
Gridlock'd is a sharp black comedy that effectively
satirises the excesses of a bureaucracy gone mad.
Actor turned director, Vondie Curtis Hall (recently
seen in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo And Juliet) brings a
kinetic energy to this contemporary comedy/drama
exploring the frantic efforts of two hardened drug
addicts trying to kick the habit. Full of profane
humour and bleak ironies, Gridlock'd is also
somewhat uncomfortable viewing at times because of
its casual use of violence and confronting scenes of
drug use.
When their friend Cookie (Thandie Newton, from
Flirting, etc) lapses into a coma following a drug
overdose on New Year's Eve, Spoon (the late rapper
Tupac Shakur, in one of his final roles) and Stretch
(Tim Roth) decide that they will also slip the habit.
But their attempts to enter a detox program and get
help meet with obstruction and frustrating delays from
an unwieldy bureaucracy. There is plenty of chaotic
running around from one end of the city to the other,
a bizarre comedy of errors created by the inertia and
inflexibility of an overworked welfare system driven
by unnecessary red tape and countless rules and
regulations. The pair find that the experience of trying
to kick the habit is almost frustrating enough to drive
them back onto drugs again.
To make matters worse, they find themselves
pursued by local drug lord D-Reper (played by the
director himself), and suspected of murder by the
cops. They are largely victims of their own
circumstances who have brought all this grief and
frustration upon themselves, but yet audiences begin
to feel a measure of empathy with their desperate
plight.
For a first time director, Hall displays a strong
command of cinematic technique, suffusing the
material with visual flourishes and giving it a
distinctive style that enhances its absurdist mood.
Stewart Copeland's evocative score also adds to the
atmosphere of the film. Hall also knows how to get
the best out of his cast and draws a pair of energetic
and wonderfully comic performances from his two
leads. The always brilliant Roth delivers another of
his wonderful performances, and he manages to look
suitably down cast, dishevelled and seedy for his role.
Shakur has a commanding screen presence delivering
a quite natural and unforced performance, but the
knowledge of his untimely and violent death
hauntingly overshadows the film, creating a savage
but unintended irony. While Roth manages to project
a suitably seedy and sickly demeanour, Shakur looks
far too healthy and in control to be totally convincing,
and audiences are conscious that the pair have far too
much energy and native intelligence for a couple of
supposedly wasted drug addicts.
Hall populates the film with some wonderful cameos,
from Charles Fleischer (best known as the voice of
Roger Rabbit) to fellow director John Sayles playing
a hard nosed, street wise cop, and Howard
Hesseman as a blind war veteran who expresses his
frustration with the system in a strange fashion.
Gridlock'd is often grim and down beat, but Hall
brings a hip energy and humour to the material, and
he uses locations within Detroit, a city with which he
is intimately familiar, to perfectly portray this harsh
and potentially lethal environment.