In the first, Stretch drops his dope at the foot of a bullying but obtuse type played by John Sayles (who does not spot the packet). The comedy includes a couple of encounters with the cops. Stretch, played as a raving nutcase by Roth, then grabs a few ounces of heroin. Unable to get into a treatment program, the friends visit their favorite dealer, who is subsequently beaten, then killed. The rest of "Gridlock'd" details his entanglement in bureaucratic red tape, but also puts the musicians - who perform jazz poetry gigs with Cookie as poet- singer - between a murderous thug and the law. Soon, a chastened Spoon decides that he will cease his life of self- destruction. Hall spins off flashbacks to the boys' fun and games with Cookie. During their wait, Hall delivers a striking shot of the two city burnouts sprawled against a huge photo blowup of an idyllic sylvan waterside, as if they were somehow transported to a healing Eden. Stretch and Spoon hang in, though Cookie remains in borderline condition. Ultimately, Spoon and Stretch carry Cookie to an emergency room, where they encounter more gridlock: the slowness of a receptionist (an uncredited, amusingly surly Elizabeth Pena) to process the paperwork.Ī conscientious young doctor recognizes the danger and snaps out a command for a gurney. On the night street, efforts to hail a cab prove futile, as both Spoon and Cookie are black. Hall opens with a moody, underlit scene in a junk-strewn loft, in which Shakur's Spoon discovers that his girlfriend/musical partner, Thandie Newton's Cookie, has lapsed into a coma. But though it reveals Hall's ambitions as a serious auteur, it rambles and repeats itself as it cuts from a jumbled present into flashbacks of a jazz-poetry infused past. Gritty and ironic as it follows its two addict musicians through bouts of shooting up and narrow escapes on mean streets, "Gridlock'd" comes across as an African American version of a minor French new wave film. "Gridlock'd" refers not to a horn- blasting traffic snarl but to the roadblocks to Detroit's drug rehab programs, as encountered by junkies played by cool Tupac Shakur and intemperate Tim Roth.ĭirected and co-written by Vondie Curtis Hall, a film-TV actor ("Chicago Hope") and former Broadway musical star ("Dreamgirls"), this grimly comic slice of urban lowlife unreels artily, with the occasional striking touch. **** Excellent *** Very Good ** Good * Fair # Poor
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