I first heard about this movie a long time ago. I was told of a guy who started out making a documentary about tweakers but ended up turning it into a full-fledged, feature-length movie.
After waiting close to two years for this movie, I was very disappointed. It seemed like a Greg Araki version of Requiem for a Dream. A movie with a few bigger name stars and lots of small cameos, all playing caricatures as opposed to characters.
The film makers should have made it into a graphic novel instead. It would have been much better that way.
Reviewing it strictly as a film, without any meth-related bias, it sucked. I understand it was supposed to be a satirical, comical look at tweakers... but it went way beyond it's intended target and came closer to being plain old ridiculous. It was full of tweaker stereotypes, only blown WAY out of proportion. The crazed dealer and his emaciated girlfriend who lives in her pajamas; the old-skool cook and his stripper girlfriend; the tweaker with a heart of gold who got caught up in the middle of it all for the drugs...
Jason Schwartzman did an amazing job with the character he was given, Micky Rourke did an even better job (possibly the best performance of his career). Otherwise, the rest of the cast was lame. Big name actors portraying tweakers on screen is like big name actors portraying retarded people on screen. All they have to do is talk funny and act stupid. With the exception of Schwartzman, Rourke and possibly Leguizamo, I doubt any of the rest of the actors had any real meth experience... no wait... Brittany murphey was probably a tweaker. She had to lose all that weight some how.
It's my belief that you can NOT make a movie about tweakers without giving the drug a starring role. The Salton Sea came closer to paying proper homage to meth. The drug was Val Kilmer's co-star, his leading lady, his love interest. Then it got shot to hell when they tried to tack it all together with a plot, but that's a thread all it's own. In Spun, the drugs seemed to be incidental. A minor plot device to keep the crazy characters moving from one bizarre scene to another. There was no attention paid to the addiction/obsession factor. No explanation as to why they kept on doing it other than they didn't want to sleep.
eh, yeah... I'm bummed, but on the bright side... it leaves the door wide open for my own tweaker movie.
Adios,
Steve