Thursday, May 01, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Of meth and men

By Anthony Allison

Too bad for Spun director Jonas Akerlund that Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream came first. Because although the Swedish music video director's first feature puts a quirky spin on the usual drug-addled suspects, it's nothing that jaded celluloid junkies haven't seen before.

The invidious comparison is unfair but inevitable. Despite powerful performances from a stellar young cast, plus bizarre turns by oldsters Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts, Spun never quite achieves the vomit-inducing impact of that baby crawling through the syringes in Danny Boyle's Scots nightmare or the gang-rape climax of Darren Aronofsky's drama.

But if you missed the local premiere of this memorably graphic movie during last summer's CineVegas festival, it's worth checking out for the edgy, eerie soundtrack by ex-Smashing Pumpkins lead Billy Corgan and Akerlund's frenzied filmmaking style--a disorienting mix of cool, kinetic camera moves and rapid-fire editing.

Jason Schwartzman, utterly unrecognizable as the earnest kid from Rushmore, plays Ross, a college dropout whose speed dealer, Spider Mike (John Leguizamo), introduces him to the Cook (Rourke), a whacked-out urban cowboy who runs a motel-room meth lab with his crazed stripper girlfriend Nikki (Brittany Murphy). As the Cook initiates his new pal into the dangerous world of crystal meth production, Ross goes on a three-day bender, involving an enraged lover (Chloe Hunter), fellow drug addict Patrick Fugit, Spider's gal (Mena Suvari), cops Peter Stormare and Alexis Arquette, a feisty neighbor (Debbie Harry) and a sinister Liberace-from-hell named The Man (Roberts).

Will De Los Santos and Creighton Vero's profanity-laced script is leavened by snatches of dark humor ("Ask not what the pussy can do for you," deadpans Rourke, "but what you can do for the pussy.") But Akerlund, who directed videos for Madonna, U2 and Ozzy Osbourne, seems flummoxed by the feature-length structure and his speed-freak pace eventually becomes tiresome long before this scabrous morality tale reaches its haunting conclusion.