Themes: Inner City Blues, Drug Trade, Going Straight
Main Cast: Michael Rapaport, Lili Taylor, Adam Trese, Kevin Corrigan, Paul Schulze
Release Year: 1996
Country: US
Run Time: 103 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This convoluted crime drama offers a haunting view of the violent and ruthless world of three Miami drug dealers: Dante, his lover Micki and Cisco. Though only in their mid-'20s, all three are veterans in the field and have made their fortunes selling heroin to upper-middle-class clients at the city's hottest nightspots via teenage couriers. The operation is overseen by a friendly but crooked-to-the-core policeman. Together the threesome has fashioned a stable, well-ordered world that borders on respectability, but that world is shattered when Dante learns that former partner Gabriel is getting out of prison and has sworn his vengeance upon the three who he believes framed him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review
Thug life has never looked as lush -- or as unbelievable -- as it does in Nick Gomez's doggedly idiosyncratic crime saga. "Quirky" doesn't begin to describe the contradictions at play in this Miami-set tale of drugs, honor, and betrayal, where Michael Rapaport's smooth, taciturn, generally benevolent drug lord Dante gets a comeuppance -- deserved or not -- that sends shock waves through his placid upper-middle class life. Simultaneously surreal and hyperreal, Gomez's work on Illtown belongs to the Long Island-indie school of direction (see also Hal Hartley and Jon Jost), where dialogue and narrative take a backseat to genre subversion and dreamy stylization. Though the script hems closely to the flamboyant-lunatic school of gangster pictures -- replete with a jarring, Pacino-wannabe supporting performance by Tony Danza -- Gomez's overall tone is that of minor-key lament. It may not satisfy patrons of the Scorsese school of ironic-realist bloodletting, but Illtown's deliberate, existential take on crime prefigures much of the stellar, breakthrough work he would accomplish on individual episodes of HBO's The Sopranos. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Angela Featherstone - Lilly; Tony Danza - D'Avalon; Isaac Hayes - George; Saul Stein - Gunther
Credit
Peter T. Da Puzzo - Associate Producer, Georgianne Walken - Casting, Sheila Jaffe - Casting, Sara Jane Slotnick - Costume Designer, Burtt Harris - First Assistant Director, Nick Gomez - Director, Tracy S. Granger - Editor, Larry Meistrich - Executive Producer, David L. Bushell - Executive Producer, Barry Cole - Musical Direction/Supervision, Brian Keane - Songwriter, Jim Denault - Camera Operator, Susan Bolles - Production Designer, Jeff Kushner - Set Designer, Terry Williams - Screen Story, Nick Gomez - Screenwriter
