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When even good intentions go awry

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 04/24/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"JUNKED should have been. Writer/Director Lance Lane probably wanted to make a comment about the lost youth of the world who, once trapped by the drugs, street sex, thievery and murder, find it difficult if not impossible to find redemption from the vertiginous plunge down the dark hole of destruction.

Filmed almost entirely in a deserted warehouse with hand held cameras and an utter lack of control of sound or atmosphere, this film starts with screaming and maintains that extreme of emotion throughout, ending with the same unaltered dismal look at its characters.

Switch (Thomas Jane who despite the material still maintains his sense of star quality) lives with his sister Nikki (Jordan Ladd), who lives in past dreams of Switch's promise to take her to live in the Taj Mahal in India, and a buddy Jimmy (Channing Rowe), a complete loser, in a filthy empty warehouse, hiding from the police for various small and large crimes. Switch is a hustler, Nikki is a prostitute, and Jimmy is a sociopath. The evil character of the film is ever-present, causing threats to Jimmy and Nikki, and may just be Lane's concept of the devil! There really is little plot, just a lot of running and fighting and yelling until finally the story comes to a grisly end.

An ardent fan of independent, challenging films, I fail to see the value of this exercise. The story is overused, but even the same story of lost youth could be tolerably retold if in the course of the action there were moments of contemplation and a sense of proportion that would make the omnipresent violence more significant. Interesting that Thomas Jane would consent to do this film: he is far better than the material. Grady Harp, April 05"