didactic hollering

Rating: 2/10 (2 September 2006)

I've checked on the internet before writing this review, partly to check there wasn't some joke I was missing out on and partly to see if there weren't plenty of negative reviews to counter the adulatory ones I'd read already. No such luck. This film is universally respected and adored for it's portrayal of drug addiction. Personally I found it to be the most jaw droppingly risible, ham fisted load of old cobblers since Reefer Madness.
Mother, son, friend and girlfriend all descend into their own hell over the space of three seasons. It begins with giggling and dieting and, within 9 months, ends in amputation, dementia, electro shock therapy, imprisonment (black boy in a Southern white boy jail) and the insertion of double ended dildos anally in a lesbo gang bang for a bag of smack. The novel (by Last Exit to Brooklyn scribe Hubert Selby Jr) was written in 1978, and maybe in those far off distant dark ages the events of this film could happen. I dare say they could today. But the combination of all these tales within a 98 minute/9 month span (and a fast edited final ten minutes showcasing the simultaneous final consequences for all participants) makes this a laughable, monotonous and ludicrous film whose audacious visual style only serves to make you feel even more patronised by its didactic hollering.