By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Mark Ruffalo
Starring: Christopher Thornton | Juliette Lewis | Laura Linney | Mark Ruffalo | Noah Emmerich | Orlando Bloom
Country: united_states
Year: 2011
Running time: 96
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270277/
Thom says: “Oh, how I wanted to like this film a whole bunch more. I’ve long adored Mark Ruffalo and seeing as this was his initial directing credit I was hoping for a new career for the endearing actor. It certainly wasn’t a stinker but it had way too many problems for a completely enjoyable experience. At times it came very close to winning me over but the final straw was the never-ending ‘endings’ to the film. A recently paralyzed DJ ‘Delicious’ Dean O’Dwyer (Thornton) is living out of his car and has befriended skid row priest Joe (Ruffalo). After discovering that he has the ‘gift’ of healing Joe has him helping sick people of a
downtrodden nature. There are arguments about how much Delicious should be paid and after an especially nasty spat he decides to join an upcoming rock group of drug-addicted musicians, led by a narcissistic, cruel fop The Stain (strikingly played by Bloom), as a DJ mixer and a sideshow act who heals people from the audience. Linney plays the band’s vapid manager to a ‘t’ & Lewis plays a band member superficially like she’s played the part many times before (she’s an actual band member in real life). When a band member dies of an overdose during a performance and Dean fails to save her he’s put on trial for manslaughter. The priest goes through a serious crisis of conscience which leads to the furtive endings. Delicious is played very inadequately by the insipid Thornton (who wrote the screenplay) and he’s so unlikable that his power of healing simply doesn’t gel. Here and there more important ideas sneak through and redemption even seems close at hand but in the end I was only frustrated. By the way, Dean is unable to heal himself. 2 1/2 cats”