should we care?


It -seems- as though some scenes ask us to care about these characters, but no one in this film, stoned or straight, ever exhibited a single quality worthy of sympathy.

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[deleted]

No, Lazur-2 is 100% correct and not just trying to be a hater or douchebag. I found out about this movie and it's creator, Johnny Hickey, through Vanguard's "Gateway to Heroin" documentary. I streamed this movie last night and so badly wanted to like it! Given Mr Hickey's traumatic beginnings, there was great potential for sympathetic character development, but the only background we were given in the film was a twice-shown flashback scene of Johnny, his brother and mother, referencing their father's shooting murder. SO MUCH MORE could have and should have been done with this scene, his murder, and its effect on the family and his son, the main character. 

Today, I read a story on "The Pheonix" which chronicled Johnny's very difficult childhood. Had I written this screenplay, I would have shown many instances of the hardships of being a young boy growing up in this hardscrabble environment, including having as a role model and his most frequent babysitter an uncle, Robert Hickey, a Townie legend and stick- up artist who was ultimately sentenced to 23 years for burglary. Amongst Robert's qualifications for guardianship and father-figure: He stashed assault rifles in the closet, puffed PCP in the living room, and stabbed his own brother in the chest while the 4-year-old Johnny looked on! I understand that Johnny may not have wanted to appear as though he were blaming his circumstances on his dysfunctional family members, but in telling a story such as this, this background is needed to "flesh out" the characters. It is hard for us as viewers to care about what happens to the film's characters if we cannot see them as human and relate to them somehow. Had the viewers been shown a bit of the lives of the main characters up to the point of the story, this would have been a much better movie. In my opinion, this is why the film did not do better at the box office.

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johnny's full of *beep* though. i wouldn't believe anything he said, ever.

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