| DIRECTED BY |
| Martin Cummins
|
| STARRING |
| Darcy Belsher |
| Martin Cummins |
| Richard C. Burton |
| Fran�oise Robertson |
| Helen Shaver |
 |
What already begins as a fairly uninteresting/unoriginal/unimaginative tale about a guy who gets involved with the Vancouver drug scene and then tries (and seems to succeed quite easily) to put his past behind him, only to have these past events sneak up unexpectedly (and clumsily, script-wise) and hit him - quite severely - in the ass.
There is some decent dialogue and skillful acting to be accounted for here (particularly from the charismatic Belscher, even if he seems more New Yorkish than Vancouverish.) But what we ultimately get is a film that tries so hard to be gritty and realistic and never really achieves that ambience. The drug sequences, for instance, are done so derisively that it�s difficult to take the film seriously again. It also happens to be quite unfocused � random characters pop up in our protagonist�s life who seem to be important but then just fade away into oblivion. The melodrama sometimes goes a little overboard as well when characters begin to whine about so many things that we can�t even figure out what they�re whining about anymore.
Cummins � who directed � over-uses the �slow-paced music montage� technique to the point of nausea. By the end, the film seems to be heading for another �true-love-through-adversity� ending (which would�ve been boring anyway) but instead decides to go for a melancholy effect, to a poorly executed and laughably sappy result.
