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Push
Just in case you missed Easy Rider, Scarface or those inimitable this-is-your-brain-on-drugs PSAs from Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Push is a reminder that drug-dealing is no picnic. Ironically, a heavy dose of narcotics might be the only thing that could make this inept downer of a movie halfway watchable.
Joe (Chad Lindberg), Kevin (Pierce Forsythe) and Mickey (William DePaolo) are three boneheaded friends whose lives forever change at a dance club one night when they stumble across a big bag of the drug ecstasy. What to do? It's an ethical dilemma the pals don't ponder for too long. Kevin is an up-and-coming stockbroker and Mickey is a trust-fund baby, but both harbor fantasies of making an overnight fortune as drug peddlers. Only Joe, who tends bar, is wary of taking on the sizable risks of selling dope. Still, he puts his reservations aside and, at his friends' urging, hooks them up to sell the dope for a Latino drug dealer, Paul (Otto Sanchez).
Push opts for the artsy move of beginning its story near the end before backing up to four months earlier. We know from the start that things will go very, very badly for these three yahoos. Subsequently, whatever intrigue the movie might hold will depend on whether the characters' downward spiral comes with a modicum of cleverness, poignancy or emotional resonance.
Instead, Push offers the hackneyed, cliché-ridden tale of three young men of privilege who discover the pitfalls of dealing drugs. Despite the quick gratification of money, babes and scores of teeth-gnashing customers, the three friends endure -- brace yourselves for a stark truth, boys and girls -- the anguish of addiction and unsavory business associates.
The predictability of the narrative is equaled only by the ineptness of its production. Scenes are poorly staged and with almost no sense of pace or drama. Director Dave Rodriguez strives for a gritty ambience, but the shaky handheld camerawork is more apt to make you wonder if his crew is suffering the DT's. Characters scream at each other in lieu of characterization.
The acting is largely atrocious. As criminal mastermind Paul, Sanchez seems to be channeling Armand Assante by way of Rob Schneider. And Paul Ben-Victor brings a new measure of offensiveness to an outrageously stereotyping role as a homosexual club-hopper who helps the wannabe dealers sell their wares at gay nightspots. Evidently, the filmmakers believe gay people dress just like the two "wild and crazy" Czech brothers of the old "Saturday Night Live" skits.
And then there is the inexplicable presence of Chazz Palminteri as Joe's boss. Palminteri is a solid character actor, but his appearance here -- along with recent roles in In the Mix and Little Man -- raises questions of whether the poor guy is trying to pay off a mountain of debt.
The DVDThe Video:
The print transfer is nearly as bad as the movie. Presented in 2:35.1 anamorphic widescreen, no amount of pretentious shifting between black-and-white and color can conceal a dull, soft and occasionally fuzzy picture quality.
The Audio:Viewers can select Digital Dolby 2.0 or Digital Dolby 5.1. Both are dismal. The audio is beset by a hollowness and noticeable inconsistency of volume.
Extras:Allumination Filmworks has previews of several of its other movies: Checking Out, Mafia Doctor, Ghosts Never Sleep and How to Go Out on a Date in Queens.
Final Thoughts:This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. This is Push: interminable, ugly and painfully predictable. Any questions?
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