An engaging look at a mangy day in the lives of two junkies trying to kick, Gridlock'd would have been a good mid-level B.O. performer even without the interest surrounding it, due to the recent death of co-star Tupac Shakur.
Gridlock'd
Life is a traffic jam.
1997 · 1h 31m · R
Comedy, Crime, Drama
Directed by
Vondie Curtis-Hall
Overview
After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.
Director and cast
- Vondie Curtis-Hall Director
- Tupac Shakur as Ezekiel 'Spoon' Whitmore
- Tim Roth as Alexander 'Stretch' Rawland
- Thandiwe Newton as Barbara 'Cookie' Cook
- Charles Fleischer as Mr. Woodson
- Howard Hesseman as Blind Man
- Vondie Curtis-Hall as D-Reper
- John Sayles as Cop #1
- Lucy Liu as Cee-cee
- Bokeem Woodbine as Mud (uncredited)
- Kasi Lemmons as Madonna
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
The film has a fairly uninteresting narrative motor in its thriller subplot, but hits on an edgy black comic tone for Stretch and Spoon's increasingly pained dealings with the unsympathetic representatives of authority.
The film seems so fresh it's almost possible to forget that it is a fraud in its description of the culture of hard drugs.
The movie's appeal lies largely in its capacity for surprise, riffing off tired characters and pooped genres to produce, intermittently at least, a fresh new tone. Call it junkie humour.
Cast against type as the gentler of two musician junkies trying to burrow through the bureaucracy to enter a rehab clinic in Detroit, Shakur has the relaxed screen presence of a young Wesley Snipes and plays perfectly off the delirious Tim Roth.
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