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'Spun' spins dark life of drugs into over-the-top mockery
Director: Jonas Akerlund
Stars: Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo
MPAA rating: R, for sexuality and drug use.
Michael Machosky can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7901.
Let's assume, first of all, that the filmmakers' motives are pure. Maybe the world needs a glimpse of the "tweaker" subculture among the young, poor and bored in rural America. Homebrewed methamphetamine labs dot this country's depressed small-town and rural wastelands. It's a cheap and brutal high for those stranded in the middle of God's country who can't find another way to cope or party.
Telling this story might indeed be a laudable goal. Some of the characters are even sympathetic, to varying degrees. Stupid, pathetic, cursed with problems that are totally self-inflicted - but recognizably human.
Mena Suvari, the beauty from "American Beauty," is all fake bruises, crusted scabs and dead eyes. John Leguizamo wears leather pants, a spider-web tattoo, and not much else. "Rushmore" revelation Jason Schwartzman - who plays Ross, the story's central character - is a dirty middle-class dropout, addicted to crank. Chloe Hunter is naked and handcuffed to Ross' bed, with duct tape over her eyes and mouth for most of the movie.
A well-chosen Brittany Murphy dresses up like a crank-head stripper. Another casting coup was the cowboy methamphetamine "Cook," played by that Titan of debauchery, Mickey Rourke.
They're all disgusting, but all beautiful as well. Weren't there any brilliant homely actors available for these rolls?
The story is fairly flimsy. Everybody's doing whatever they can do to get high, all the time. The Cook brews up the crank, but needs "Spider Mike" (Leguizamo) to sell it, and Ross to drive him around to get the ingredients. A pair of plainclothes policemen, who star in a "Cops"-like reality police, try to take down the Cook's operation, while snorting just as much crank as the junkies they bust.
Every time someone snorts the drugs, the camera sharply focuses in on their eyes dilating, or nose inhaling, to depict the heightened sensitivity of the user. Ripped off wholesale from the far superior "Requiem For a Dream," this technique gets tiresome fast, but is repeated dozens of times.
Ultimately, this is the problem with "Spun." Despite whatever its intentions were, it comes off as a bunch of bright young actors making fun of the poor, the rural and the hopeless addicts. All of the over-the-top depravity wears thin after a while, and you begin to wonder, "Why am I watching this again?"
