Spun (2003)

I am a big fan of stories. It's probably the main reason for me to watch movies. This movie is a sequence of follies, it goes from one scene of a drug trip, to another. But there is no real plot. It's for people who find it funny to see humans freaking out on drugs. Usually those are kids that don't have much experience with drugs. Back in the days, me and my friends kept watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. We found it funny as hell. So I do understand the fun of drug movies. But unlike Spun, Fear and Loathing is a good movie, and has a good story. I seriously fail to understand the point of Spun. It doesn't even seem to be negative about drugs. All it seems to be, is one big drug trip. - Fun to watch for drug "fans", pointless for others.Actors have been good in this movie. It was pretty much the only thing worth watching. Sadly I didn't find the characters convincing. The few people on drugs that I learned to know, haven't been anything like them. Most characters are totally exaggerated. Which makes this movie not only pointless, but also totally unrealistic.(I just checked the IMDb rate-history. People below 18 rated this movie way higher than others. Suits my theory totally.)

Spun takes the viewer on a harrowing, hilarious ride-along with a bunch of speed freaks as they blast through a four-day binge. We meet normal guy Ross as he goes to score from his dealer, Spider Mike. At Spider's place, we meet his girlfriend Cookie, her friend Nikki, and teenage hanger-on, Frisbee. Spider has lost his stash and is freaking out. Nikki tells Ross that she can get him some speed, because her boyfriend is the cook.The cook agrees to provide Ross with speed if Ross will act as driver for him and Nikki (Ross being the only one with a functioning car). Ross goes off to meet his occasional hookup, stripper April. They go back to Ross's apartment (complete with eviction notice tacked to the door), and have loads of kinky sex. The cook calls. Nikki needs a ride. Ross leaves April tied to his bed (he'll be "right back") and proceeds to forget about her for a couple of days (Oops! Looks like Ross isn't so normal after all).Things go on in this vein. Frisbee is arrested and forced to rat on Spider. The cook blows up a hotel room. Ross hits rock bottom (but seems not to realize it) when his "girlfriend" (Amy, not his hookup, April) makes it very clear that she has no interest in him beyond the $400 he owes her.Along the way, people do drugs, talk incessantly, have sex and argue. what they do not do is eat or sleep.The movie's best point is its unflinching portrayal of the grubby lives of the characters. Mena Suvari, as Cookie, is a pale, pockmarked mess (contrast that with her radiance in American Beauty). Brittany Murphy, as Nikki, is sexy, but in a very low-rent kind of way. Jason Schwartzman's Ross is a convincing everyman, who becomes a twitchy, red-eyed burnout with scabby cuticles by the end. Formication is a bitch! The acting is great. These characters are not admirable people, and Schwartzman, Murphy, and especially Suvari have taken big risks in playing them.Unfortunately, the film does have some big flaws. Ross utters some embarrassingly amateurish lines like, "...and the great thing is, I'm not hooked!" We know it's meant to be ironic, but there's irony, and then there's irony that comes walking into the room with a sign around its neck saying, "Hello, my name is Irony." It's painfully obvious that this is a first script.In the end, though, this is a film that will stay with you. It's world is grubby, saturated and pornographic, but all to the purpose of getting to the core of the speed-ruined characters who inhabit it.

I simply want to discuss why I think this movie stands out among the genre of "drug" movies. Unlike heroin, LSD, marijuana, ecstasy, or coke, meth is a drug that simply can not be glorified. I love drugs and I love drug experiences. I mean I've grown past much of those scenes, but I appreciate drugs and often appreciate the ability directors have to depict drugs on the silver screen. Watching Spun makes me thankful that I never resorted to Meth, and I think its a brilliant rendition of what this drug does to you. As for the acting, I found the movie difficult to watch because the acting was so "spun" in a sense. The ADD that meth brings on is so clear in this movie. No thought is finished, no plan is thought out, cause and effect are muddled in a world of sped minds. Its not my favorite movie of this genre largely because I feel like drug abuse should at the very least bring a satisfying high to the user before sinking the user into the myriad of troubles that drug addiction brings. This is the one saving grace for the user, the momentary high. In Spun, the momentary highs don't bring much grace, but instead, bring added confusion, added torment, and added lows. Its not easy to watch, but its respectable nonetheless.

It was one of those movies were it is intended to make a point, but in my view it was just another lame pointless movie. I have never seen a movie with such disgusting scenes, and three of those scenes were just too disgusting to watch. The first was when Frisbee (Patrick Fugit) was having, at least what I think it is, a steak. The look of his meal, the way he eats and not mention his mother siting in her filth was sickening! The second scene was when Cookie (Mena Suvari) was in the toilet, there are no words to describe it, and can't imagine how any actress would agree do this scene. The final scene was when Spider Mike (John Leguizamo) was practicing his "habit", I just don't understand what the director was trying achieve from all this! The only perfect thing about the movie was the cast, they were very successful to act as losers.All in all, an awful disgusting pointless movie with a perfect matching cast.