Sweet Nothing

I caught this one on cable during a night of insomnia. I dialed it in so I could sleep, but it kept me completely awake. The story is small, simple, and familiar. What kept me watching were the wonderful, understated performances by just about everyone, which is usually a tribute to the director as well as the cast. This is not a big film, but it is quite memorable.

I literally looked everywhere for this movie: online, in stores, and in bargain boxes - and yet I couldn't find one copy. I finally ordered a used VHS tape from America, and was able to watch it.

I seriously don't understand why this film never went to DVD. It's a really good, decent, but terrifying movie about a normal, every day family man consumed by crack addiction. His perfect world and mind is torn apart by his drug abuse and dealing, and his family falls apart from him.

This is an early, rare gem of a movie in Michael Imperioli's career, pre-Sopranos. Mira Sorvino had just won her Oscar and is brilliant as the struggling, long suffering wife. Siskle and Ebert gave two thumbs up for the movie, and it was highly praised by everyone who had seen it at the time that it premiered. So it baffles me why it was never released.

I'm so glad I finally got to see it, however. It's a fine add to the collection of anti-drug movies, along with Trainspotting, Requiem for a dream and A Scanner Darkly.

One of the scariest movies I've ever seen, right up there with "Requiem for a Dream." Paul Calderon, a good actor, plays a small but key (and nasty) character that cannot have helped his career but makes the terror of the film work splendidly.

This is a film about crack addiction, and how it can suck in even a hard-working young man with a good wife and some ambition. We are given just enough backstory about the lead character to make his fall seem credible and terrifying.

Another reviewer referred to the Imperioli character as 'Angelo' and he could well be an Angelo. However the character's name is actually Angel, which makes me wonder. Was this really supposed to be about Puerto Ricans, but adapted to make them maybe Sicilian-Americans instead? It reminds me of those Frank Sinatra comedies (e.g., 'Hole in the Head') where the lead was originally Jewish, but made sort-of-Italian to fit the actor. This misfit casting makes the social context implausible--an Italian family that lives mostly among Puerto Ricans and blacks. Nevertheless the script still manages to ring true in certain details, particularly during the last third when Angel attempts to make a little money by getting back into low-level dealing and finds himself in ever-more-sordid situations.

Celebrating the birth of his first child, Angel's drinking pal Raymond takes him to a crack den where they both take hits – Angel's first. The first hit is easy and Angel soon finds himself making it a regular habit, but still holding it together enough to keep his job and family happy. Years pass without incident but Angel and Monika are unhappy, they have two kids now and money is always very tight. So when Angel gets the offer to get involved in dealing he takes it and happily watches the money starting to roll in, but with time Angel finds himself sucked into the darker side of the drugs world including violence, drug abuse and murder. As his using gets more frequent, money becomes tighter and Angel gets trapped in a vicious circle.

When a film contains a character who starts dabbling with crack on the basis that he can control it, it seldom surprises an audience to find things spinning out of control and said character falling into a pit of despair with slippery sides. And so it is with this film, it keeps to the plot route that we have been taught to expect from such a film and doesn't do a great deal to vary from it. It will come as no shock to learn that Angel gets out of his depth with the drugs, gets in debt to gangsters, risks his marriage etc etc. The plot never risks keeping us awake by doing anything new and the script pretty much serves up the dialogue you'd expect from the characters. It is interesting enough but it is very formulaic and will bring nothing new to viewers who have seen this story told better in other films.

What just about saves it from being dismissable is some solid delivery from a cast of up and comers. Imperioili has played a man captured by drugs in Sopranos where he was given much better material to work with but he still does well here. He is given average material but still turns in a believable performance – it would be better if it wasn't all so predictable but he does well with what he has. Sorvino is less convincing and never struck me as a believable character; it may have been weaknesses in the writing but her performance doesn't really help. Support from Calderon and a few others in gangster/junkie roles don't do anything special but aren't bad per se and just fill out the space.

Overall this is a fairly formulaic 'drugs are bad' movie that goes just where you expect it to. The writing lacks any real invention and the direction doesn't have the style and flair that others who have tackled this subject usually try to have, but the cast work hard with what they are given and kept me watching even though I could have predicted every scene from 15 minutes onwards.

Greetings and salutations. Responding to an entry made by author. The journals were actually found in my apartment after and eviction, (these were my journals). As i have the story, from Gary Winick (RIP) some pages were faxed to him and that was how the journal was first brought to his attention. Mr. Winick (after our meeting) aided and assisted in my recovery process and we would keep in touch via phone or in person (NY meetings) until his passing.