Movie – The Wackness

There were 2 reasons to see this film:

Ben Kingsley, who I found a new respect for since I saw House of Sand and Fog  four years ago, when there was nothing else on. A fantastic film, even though it makes you feel tense through out. I still saw it again when it was on TV.

 

I’ve not seen him in anything else but that’s because he doesn’t make that many mainstream films and he doesn’t always take starring roles, so maybe I don’t find out.

 

The second, it’s set in New York in the summer of1994 so the music they select is always going to be interesting. It’s a shame it wasn’t 1992 as that’s the only Summer I did spend in NYC and probably the only Summer I ever will. It’s way to hot and humid.

OK that’s a total of 4 reasons to see the film.

 

I have been getting peeved with the amount of disaster films set in New York. It breaks my heart to see all the landmarks being pulled down by terrorists or aliens – or both.

 

It’s almost nice to only think of drug dealers when thinking of New York. That’s not totally what The Wackness is about but drugs form a central character.

 

Kingsley played a fairly eccentric New York shrink, although I guess not by NYC standards. The film portrayed him more as childish and yes he was trying to recapture his youth. The main character was an unpopular, teenage drug dealer. Yes, it’s a contradiction which was not lost on our favourite shrink, (“Whoever heard of an unpopular drug dealer?”) who treated the ‘depressed’ (the most miss-used word in the English language) youngster. By return, he was paid with drugs.

 

I would have thought being the school drug dealer is the most popular job you can have, apart from being a top sports or music talent.

 

Although this sets the scene for the movie, it was funny and quirky in many ways with the story of the long hot summer unfolding for our unpopular teen dealer desperate to make friends, get laid (not in that particular order) whilst trying to keep his parents marriage together and their family home from being repossessed and them having to move to Jersey. Yes, the standard NYC joke, if you can’t afford to live in the Big Apple anymore, you move to New Jersey, a mere 10-15 minutes away with fantastic views of the Manhattan skyline. Not really a hardship in my book.

 

1994 was the start of Rudy Giuliani’s term as mayor when he famously started cleaning up the city and bought in the ‘zero tolerance’ policy on crime. In my mind, the best thing to happen in recent years but not good news for the dealers. The underlying feel of the film is about them going deeper underground and yet Mr Unpoplular still was friends with them all.

 

The film did not dissapoint.

 

8/10

Smile factor 9/10.