Hit-and-run drives this taut drama
‘Stuck’ Thriller about a hit-and-run victim trapped in a windshield. With Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea. Directed by Stuart Gordon (1:25).R: Violence, sexuality. At the Angelika.
Horror and gore, in the right hands, can free up ideas. David Cronenberg refined himself through great psycho-chillers, and Sam Raimi and George Romero didn’t let blood get in the way of satire. Writer-director Stuart Gordon is the same way, though his output has been spotty since the 1985 cult favorite “Re-Animator.”
But Gordon was inspired when he came upon a disturbing true story in 2001: A homeless man, hit by a car driven by a woman who didn’t want to report the accident, spent hours trapped in her windshield before dying. Gordon turned that story into “Stuck,” and, with scripter John Strysik, altered it to make a taut drama that manages to be thoughtful without forgetting it’s a creep-out.
Mena Suvari is Brandi, first seen conscientiously cleaning up after residents at the nursing home where she works. After a night of partying with drug-dealer boyfriend Rashid (Russell Hornsby), Brandi gets behind the wheel and hits Tom (Stephen Rea), a down-on-his-luck guy whose day began by being evicted from a fleabag hotel before being shooed away by an employment agency.
When Tom goes sailing into Brandi’s front window, her initial terror turns to trickiness. She pulls into her garage, intending for Tom to just die there. But he doesn’t: While she and Rashid have sex and do what they can to hurry along his demise, Tom attempts to free himself from the shards of glass keeping him attached to the car. From the glimpses into his life prior to the accident, he’s had bad breaks. This one, however, he’s going to fight.
Rarely do films show the systemic disregard faced by people living on the edge, the little pushes that hurry along a slipping-down life. “The Pursuit of Happyness” was maybe the last. This movie actually takes time to know its characters. Tom’s descent to sleeping in a park is mirrored by Brandi’s eagerness to get promoted. Suvari (“American Beauty”) and, especially, Rea (“The Crying Game”) show how hunger for respect can bring out a person’s true colors.
Of course, “Stuck” is anything but high-minded. Any movie that has bloody windshield wipers, ripped-up faces and people on fire really just wants to get a reaction. Gordon wields horror traditions like a scalpel – will the neighbor come to the rescue? Do we root for the monster or the victim? Don’t go with a weak stomach. But expect it to be turned into knots.