Great acting...shame the script is so clueless...

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2003)

If you're impressed by this film...its because you've never been on the wrong side of the tracks. This is a movie by outsiders for outsiders.
Despite a promising first scene, its ignorance was frankly jaw dropping. For instance, without revealing anything of the plot...you don't get 'promoted' by drug dealers, it doesn't work like that. Career dealers sell as much as they can and buy as much as they can afford. Likewise, the scene in the supermarket store room where the dealer turns up in a lorry to sell his wares to a crowd of smaller dealers - obscenely ridiculous.
The problem with this movie really comes down to the fact that they didn't do their homework properly. Its not a case of artistic license - since a more informed film would have considerably more powerful. Requiem's author, Hubert Selby Jr - freely admits that the sum total of his own first hand, personal experience of skag was that he used to 'see' them across 'a' street thirty years ago. He wrote Requiem in 6 weeks. Draw your own conclusions....
If want to know what smacks really like, then you want to watch and read Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh and Junky by William Burroughs, both long term addicts. The truth of life on heroin is considerably more horrific and its underlying causes fundamentally more complex than this something as contrived and ill-informed could ever serve to demonstrate.
If, on the other hand, you want to hear the prejudiced views of people with absolutely no personal experience of heroin or its addicts....this is the film for you!