Stuck.

"If you've ever yearned to watch (as well as hear and practically feel) Academy Award nominee Stephen Rea writhe gorily in windshield glass for the better part of 85 minutes, Stuck is your movie," writes Justin Stewart in Reverse Shot. "[I]t's not hard to get high on its gamy fumes. It may not be the idea movie that [director Stuart] Gordon and [writer John] Strysik think it is, as evidenced by press-conference statements, but the notions it attempts to get across (the homeless are hopelessly marginalized, misdeeds matter) come from a good place."

"[A]n original, deadly serious, blackly-comic thriller," declares Peter Martin at Cinematical. "Gordon exercises superb sleight-of-hand with the material; we never know if the next moment will be funny, thoughtful, or stomach-churning, and his orchestration of a wide range of emotions makes watching Stuck an exhausting, exhilarating experience."

Updated through 5/31.

This is a "grim, expert little thriller," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "Mr Gordon has enjoyed a cult following since his 1985 horror hit, Re-Animator. And Stuck, while not strictly a horror film, is steeped in gore and carries a seam of mocking gallows humor as relentless as that of Sweeney Todd."

"That Stuck is mostly based an actual event (one that happened in Texas, of course) is frightening, but ultimately irrelevant thanks to [Mena] Suvari's and Rea's nuanced performances," writes Mark Peikert in the New York Press.

"The callousness and casual disregard for human life displayed by Suvari and several other characters, major and minor, recalls Larry Clark's Bully, though Gordon's film is much more purposeful," writes Scott Tobias at the AV Club. "Though it takes a little time to find its groove - the hilarious opening-credits sequence notwithstanding - Stuck picks up a lot of comic momentum once the situation gets more desperate and absurd.... It's a righteously nasty piece of work, and a rare example of a movie that traffics in B-movie grime without a trace of Grindhouse-style self-consciousness."

"[I]t's an energetic B-movie with pulpy magnetism," writes Bryant Frazer. "Think of it as slapstick social realism."

"Don't get stuck watching this," warns David Goldman in the L Magazine.

Interviews with Gordon: Nick Dawson (Filmmaker) and Aaron Hillis (IFC).

Matthew DeBord talks with Suvari for the Los Angeles Times.

Earlier: Reviews from Toronto 07; and David D'Arcy.

Update, 5/31: "Grandiose claims have been made in some quarters for this nasty, economical little film, but it does what it sets out to do pretty well," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "Is its tale of cruelty, selfishness and idiocy... a metaphor for the current state of American life, or maybe for the unchanging human condition? Only if you want it to be."

Posted by dwhudson at May 30, 2008 7:20 AM