Terribly one-note movie about drugs.

Rating: Null/10 (17 May 2005)

Tricks and wizardry cannot mask a shallow plot. The audience takes a relentless pounding. The camera whirls, the actors vomit, lights flash and Jennifer Connley snorts crack. An hour and a half of cinematic abuse.
The film's point: drugs take many forms, destroy lives, are all around us and man innately possesses an addictive personality.
Millions of dollars spent making a movie that tells us that drugs are bad. With it's hokey game-show scenes and show-reel like gimmickery, "Requiem for a Dream" is a Film School geek's wet dream.
That said, I think the film is slightly important. If the target audience is simply "those who are likely to do drugs" then this film should have a positive effect. I personally found all the "trickery" and "jolts" amateurish, and the plot laughably melodramatic, but I suppose this would horrify teens who might be considering doing drugs.
But do drug addicts watch movies about drugs? I don't think so. I think this is all a wasted exercise, with the director simply choosing material and subject matter that would justify the tone initially attempted in "PI".
The sole question this film puts on my lips is: "can art change the world"? Can a work like "Requiem" really go out there and shake up the drug culture? The answer seems to be no. Art, mostly, reaffirms the already existent trends and notions of the time. Few pieces of art challenge, let alone are great enough to enforce a change. This film neither revolutionises or reaffirms. It just exists. It's impotent.
7/10 - Once you've seen one drug movie, you've seen them all. Makes a good companion piece to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Trainspotting", "Drugstore Cowboy", "Maria Full of Grace", "Traffic", "Pure", "Big Bad Love", "The Corner" (from the makers of "The Wire"), "Wonderland", "Leaving Las Vegas", "BasketBall Diaries", "Barfly", "Scarface", "The Doors" and "Panic in Needle Park". Then you have weird auteur addiction movies like "Altered States", "Clockers", "Crash" and "Naked Lunch".
Worth one viewing.