![]() ![]() Overall a solid drama that is a good satire that is greatly helped by the chemistry between Tupac and Tim Roth. Outside of these three the rest of the cast throws up some well known faces - Vondie Curtis Hall is good and Lucy Liu makes a brief pre-fame appearance. Thandie Newton is very good looking and is a good actress but here she's not totally convincing - epically during the jazz scenes where she doesn't really have the voice to be convincing. Roth is good as always with his American accent. Both are convincing - Tupac is a good example of a musician crossing over into film and giving a good performance - Master P et al please take note and stop being so arrogant! This is a fitting testimony to Tupac's talent. The chemistry between Tupac and Roth is natural, with Tupac playing it calm and Roth being more angry and aggressive. But the story is what makes this film - it's dark right up till the end, but the ending feels like a cop out - is it a flashback or is it a happy ending? I don't know. Vondie Curtis Hall is a great actor (with a cameo role here and plenty of great performances in Passion Fish, Drop Squad, Crooklyn), here he shows that he is a good director as well (I can forgive him for Glitter!). The feel of the film is gritty and unrealistic, the drug use is viewed neutrally - the good side of it sits beside the bad side and neither is pushed more than the other. The direction is good, the flashbacks are well handled visually and in terms of placing them within the film. The subplot involving the drug-related murder is a good addition to the plot as it compliments the range of problems they are experiencing, and somehow it doesn't seem to fit in too badly with the story even though it relies on several coincidences to get it moving. However it also rightly sees the major problems that exist in the system. Like we've all been waiting for this day for 10 years!" This is very clever because the film doesn't want to be too sympathetic to junkies after all. You expect the world to stop just because today you've decided to kick. As one of the health care workers says "we have rules. However this is not all one sided - the film is intelligent enough to know that both clients and system need to give some. The film shows them getting the round around when all they want to do is kick. The film shows the frustration they experience with a system that is not focused on the needs of their customers but is layer upon layer of paperwork and bureaucracy. This is a very dark satire on the bureaucracy of the US healthcare system - a wonderful system if you can afford it, unfortunately not for the millions of disenfranchised who are outside the system. They spend the next day trying to get into a rehab clinic while also getting accidentally mixed up in a murder enquiry. ![]() This is all the motivation Spoon needs to kick and both he and Stretch resolve to give it up. There's an intangible allure to his performances here and in the previous gangsta dramas Juice and Poetic Justice he demanded All Eyze on Me through his music, and the same probably would have happened in the movies.On New Years Eve, jazz musicians Stretch, Spoon and Cookie are using when Cookie overdoses. However, it's Shakur's easy smile and believable line readings that stick with us, even after the rest of Gridlock'd has been discarded as trash. Roth has a few nice moments of dim-witted madness, and Newton is a fetching actor who likewise deserves better material. Flashbacks don't clear up any of the logical questions here, except why Spoon, Stretch and Cookie's pretentious and moody music hasn't earned them a recording contract. Gridlock'd is a movie that expects us to laugh at surprise admissions of being HIV-positive, and Stretch's macho stand to resist being tested for that condition where the comic highlight (according to a preview audience) is the sight of Spoon intentionally jabbing Stretch with a knife to be admitted to an emergency ward. ![]() Stretch and Spoon get scared straight but have a tough time entering the detox center. The lead singer of their combo is Cookie (Thandie Newton), who suffers a heroin overdose in the opening minutes. Shakur plays Stretch, a jazz musician whose buddy Spoon (Tim Roth, Rob Roy) is equally talented and hooked.
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