Director: Stuart Gordon
Writers: John Strysik and Stuart Gordon
Cinematographer: Denis Maloney
Starring: Stephen Rea, Mena Suvari, Russell Hornsby
Studio/Running Time: THINKFilm, 85 mins.
While driving home, high on drugs and alcohol, a young woman plows into a homeless man who goes through her windshield headfirst. Instead of helping him, the woman drives home, parks in the garage and leaves the man stuck there while she goes into the house and has sex with her boyfriend. And because truth really is stranger than fiction, that true 2001 news story of man’s inhumanity to fellow man is the basis for the dark comedy Stuck.
In the film, Mena Suvari (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) plays Brandi, the driver, who we at first see as a compassionate caregiver in a nursing home. But she soon transforms into a heartless, self-centered basketcase that sees her victim as an annoyance to be removed from her life. Veteran actor Stephen Rea is excellent as the entangled casualty who doggedly, and courageously, fights for his freedom and his life. Brandi assures the man, more than once, that she is getting help. But instead her boyfriend (Russell Hornsby) advises her to get rid of the evidence (both the car and Tom), arguing, “Look what happened to O.J.”
“But didn’t O.J. go free?” she responds
“That’s not the point!” he yells back.
It is commendable that director Stuart Gordon has insightfully shown the humorous side to a very un-humorous—even heinous—story of our fellow citizens behaving at their absolute worst. You’ll laugh in spite of yourself.