Illtown

Illtown's a startling 180 from the documentaryish "Laws of Gravity", from the same director and much of the same supporting cast...this is a dreamlike, strangely structured film about drug dealers that sets up an expectation of a typical revenge flick, but by the end we don't quite know who's the "good" guys or the "bad" guys, and despite the narrative setting up one set of characters as the protagonists, the antagonist ends up in many ways as sympathetic, if not more, for this is a film that doesn't fill us in on the backstory for some time...watch it for Corrigan's great monologue about his wife three quarters of the way in, just one of many great moments in this truly weird, violent, unsettling film...

As the title says, I find this to be sort of the 'heroin' version of Scarface though the stories are not identical. The movie features strong actors who can be seen in movies/shows like True Romance, Copland, American Pie, The Sopranos, The Substitute, Ransom, etc.

The movie is trippy/surreal so in some ways it's comparable to David Lynch's directing style. The story revolves around drug dealers and an ex-dealer getting out of prison and trying to reclaim his place in the drug world in Florida. i don't want to give the story away, but you can assume from the aforementioned summary of the plot, that there will be friction, and deaths.

strong movie, obviously from the rating, it's poorly underrated.

After being completely blown away by "Laws of Gravity" and "New Jersey Drive" I had great expectations for this bigger-budget, bigger-talent movie. Unfortunately this effort fails to achieve what Gomez's earlier offerings did so successfully. I think the biggest problem with the film is the pacing. All of the heroin-induced deadpan dialogue just wears the momentum out of the story. The talent here is just wasted in a cloudy disembodied attempt at a realistic portrayal of the world of heroin in Miami. My advice, stick with Gomez's earlier films and hope for future success from this very talented director.

I just watched Illtown on video, 6 years after it came out. Better late than never! I loved Laws of Gravity and wondered what happened to Nick Gomez. I knew he was directing some TV stuff (Oz, the Sopranos) and unfortunately didn't get around to seeing Illtown when it was in the theatres. Nick Gomez's directing style is so unique and powerful, and his sense of color and detail is incredible. Illtown reminded me alot of Soderberg's "The Limey", in its sophisticated sense of space and geography. Gomez's use of the Florida landscape and architecture is just as expressive as the incredible cast of characters he assembled, just as his location of Williamsburg, Brooklyn did in Laws of Gravity. I loved this film, and I encourage anyone who has any taste to see it.

Man, I can't believe I stayed up until 1am watching this mistake on IFC. I really enjoyed Laws of Gravity (granted I saw it almost 10 years ago and my opinion may be quite different if I saw it today), so I figured Illtown would be at worst an engaging if not unique film. The thing is, it's not a extremely bad film, it's just drops the ball in alot of places, is pretentious in many others and is a mess and a failure at the end. I mean, to start with, Gomez seems to equate putting vague segues, low talking and excruciating overused slo-mo with standard crime film cliches as great film making. The talent is there with Rappaport (Wigger #1, my man!), Taylor and Corrigan, the cinematography is creative, and the story, while not unique, is engrossing enough to make you want to spend 90 minutes on. The pacing is tolerable at first and the quiet slow dialog between Rappaport and Taylor is captivating for about 45 minutes, but then cliches, unrealistic criminal behaviour and TONY DANZA derail this into what ultimately is a failure, and an irratating one at that. The characters, Gabriel and D'Avalon in particular, are portrayed as too "cool for words", as if we are suppossed to be impressed with them because the filmatic cues instruct us to. Gabriel is terribley overacted, his motives are legit but his execution of his plan is absurdlly plotted, confusing and devoid of the tension Gomez seems to think we'll allow him without earning it. People are killed left and right in what is suppossed to be shockinging casualness but comes off more comical and absurd (aparently the only cops beside the corrupt one are the ones in flashbacks.) It's like Gomez picked the top 5 most public places to NOT commit a murder and just offs people without consequence. That isn't shocking, it's dopey. "Hey, I'll kill one of my crew out of tough guy spite in my girlfriend's apartment like it was ordering a pizza!" Ooooooooh, how Tarantino. Rappaport is OK (he isn't bad at all, rather likeable, but is kind of trapped in a crummy movie), Taylor is actually quite good (and as a cheap "guy" aside, she's actually kinda cute in this movie. After seeing her in one too many "ugly duckling/manly psycho" roles this was refreshing). It was nice to see her character as business equal, not just "minor drug lord's girlsfriend". I really liked Corrigan who's occasional overblown performance seems more a result of a cliched script than his ability. But really, the absurdity of absurdities is DANZA. Poking holes in a Tony Danza performance is like shooting fish in a barrel then stomping on them in jackboots on the driveway, so I feel pretty cheap doing this. The roles as it appears he was directed and dictated by ridiculous dialog (drug lord dialog 101) would be terrible if it was Pacino, for Godsake, but with Danza it's atrocious. Hey, I'm all for reinventing youself (I still applaud Stallone for Copland and I still foolishly root for the never-materializing Great Jim Carrey dramatic role). The man simply had no clue how to approach this already cliched character, so he did what he thought would come off as "important": he spoke low, added a bit of lame fey (oooh, the drug lord is gay, so I'll play him like a angry dandy), started every scene with a disarming non-sequitor . . . ugh. What a pretentious pile of crap. Questions abound: Why didn't Gabriel just kill Dante? How was the corrupt cop in Florida and Boston? Why do bodies lie undiscovered for days? Where is everyone in this city? Why doesn't Gabriel look anything short of an chiseled underwear model after getting beat with a pool cue and strangled (not a damn mark on him after loosing teeth and turning purple)? What the HELL is the deal with Isaac Hayes? And DOES DANTE DIE? Is the abiguity suppossed to impress me? It just comes off as stupid.