This eventually makes them suspects in a double In between cooling their heels and listening to 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' on waiting-room Muzak, Stretch and Spoon indulge in occasional recidivism with a drug-dealing friend. The wrong information.') If all this sounds as interesting as a day at the motor vehicle bureau, rest assured that the stars' funny banter and Hall's eye for detail keep it sharp. ('This center is for alcohol abuse only, sir! We no longer treat drug addiction. He determines that he and Stretch will turn their lives around, and thus begins a comedy of errors and a tour of bureaucratic purgatory. Newton), winds up in the emergency room as the film begins. Cookie, the quasi-singer who forms a trio with Stretch and Spoon (and is played with show-stopping insouciance by the gorgeous Thandie The film begins with a New Year's Eve overdose in Detroit and some well-timed resolutions in its wake. Apparently nothing they need so urgently can be had without a four- to six-week wait. Spoon and Stretch (Roth also makes a strong, funny impression) may be affable stumblebums, but they register real frustration when parked in an endless string of waiting rooms or when being told it's necessary to be on welfare to receiveĮmergency Medicaid. Hall has made a lively, well-played film about serious business: the problems faced by drug addicts who must fight their way through a bureaucratic establishment in order to seek help. He could have looked forward to a big future on the screen.Ĭonspicuous as it is for one of Shakur's final performances, 'Gridlock'd' is even more notable as the writing and directing debut of the actor Vondie Curtis Hall. He played this part with anĪppealing mix of presence, confidence and humor. 'Me and Tim always joke that we're the new Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, only I'm the Mel Gibson and he's the Danny Glover,' Shakur is quoted as having said accurately about his own role. Spends a lot of time doing damage control for Stretch and persuading him to pipe down. In a successful change of pace, Shakur played the straight man to Tim Roth's more unhinged character, Stretch, a hotheaded honky who often needs to be reminded, for the sake of his own safety, that he isn't black. Upac Shakur, who was 25 when he died last September, played one of his last roles in 'Gridlock'd,' a smart, well-made buddy film about two junkies desperate

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