Dir.
Wayne Kramer, US, 2005, 122 mins
Cast:
Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Verga Farmiga, Chazz Palminteri
For over a decade Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) has successfully juggled his conflicting roles as both loving family man and a low-level employee of the Italian Perello mob in Grimley, New Jersey. However, when Joey ignores the mob's explicit instructions to dispose of a gun used in the fatal shooting of a corrupt cop during a bungled drug buy, he unwittingly puts his entire family in immediate danger.
Joey stows this incriminating piece of evidence in his basement for possible future use as collateral against his employers only to have his son's best friend, Oleg (Cameron Bright), discover and abscond with the weapon. Unaware that the disappearance of this weapon could jeopardize both Joey's and his own life, Oleg uses it to wound his abusive stepfather Anzor (Karel Roden), the drug-addicted black sheep of the Russian Yugorsky mob, and then flees into the night. As he vainly seeks safe haven, Oleg encounters and dodges a slew of nocturnal miscreants all the while being pursued by relentless Perello and Yugorsky henchmen as well as by the nefarious Detective Rydell (Chazz Palminteri), a corrupt cop who is hell-bent on profiting from the missing gun's potentially disastrous effects on the already uneasy alliance between the rival Perello and Yugorsky clans.
Meanwhile, Joey, hot on Oleg's trail and aided by both his wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga) and son (Alex Neuberger), has embarked on a desperate nightlong search not only to locate Oleg and the gun but also to save his own life and street credibility by keeping the gun's disappearance a secret from both mob factions.
ABOUT THE FILM
As his ambitious follow-up to "The Cooler," Kramer has chosen to make a gritty, 70s-style, fast-paced thriller with a few modern twists. "This is the most challenging script I've written and it's the script that I love the most. I think it's the kind of film that not too many people are making," says Kramer.
Media 8's Sammy Lee agrees, saying, "The film is a nonstop, absolutely unrelenting ride. The action is so gritty and real that I think audiences will really connect with it on a visceral level. The film has all the style and polish of a big-budget action movie, but it still retains the edgy, uncompromising tone of an independent film."
Kramer's producing partner Pierce assesses the multi-layered script with similar enthusiasm. "This movie was always something I've been passionate about. This is my favorite script of any script Wayne has ever written." He describes the story itself as "so finely woven that it's like a house of cards."
"I wanted to do something that for the most part of the film would seem ambiguous to the audience. This guy is going after this kid and if he doesn't find this kid and this gun, his whole life is over. So we're never quite sure of his intentions," says Kramer of the character Joey Gazelle.
Playing the role of Joey marks one of leading man Paul Walker's initial forays into more mature filmic territory. Pfeffer recalls, "Wayne wanted somebody young and cutting edge and the mafia today are not the kind of archetypal gangsters we think of when we close our eyes. Wayne wanted the film to be very current, very cutting-edge and that was the attraction of Paul."
Walker remarks "when I read the script I thought it was quite possibly the coolest thing that I've read in the six or seven years that I've been in this profession" and welcomed the opportunity to play a somewhat dubious character. " These are my favorite types of characters," he effuses. "These are the guys I always like in the movies. I love the good/bad guys. That's today, I think. It's not black and white like it used to be."
"Paul is terrifying as Joey at moments where he taps into some crazy rage which I don't think anyone has seen before. He's not the golden boy that we're used to seeing in this role and that was very exciting to watch," says Vera Farmiga of Walker's break-out performance.
As Oleg is from a highly dysfunctional, violence-prone household similar to that of Joey's childhood, Kramer draws parallels between his journey and Joey's. " In a way Oleg is a kind of Pinocchio character. He doesn't think he's a real boy. He doesn't have a loving family. He's looking to become part of the other family. He's on a journey to completion and in pursuing him Paul Walker's character is also on a journey. It's triggering something from his past, being an abused kid himself. So there are a lot of layers to what is going on here."
Unsure of whether Joey intends to protect him or silence him for good, young Oleg's desperate travels lead him to encounter a series of societal cast-offs with varying agendas, from Divina (Idalis De Leon) the prostitute, a homeless crack addict and Lester the vengeful pimp (David Wachowsky), Dez (Bruce Altman) and Edele (Elizabeth Mitchell) the kidnappers, among others.
Because these characters are seen through the eyes of a child, Kramer has imbued them all with exaggerated, almost fairytale-sized proportions and characteristics. He likens Oleg's tumultuous journey through the night as "a fairy-tale metaphor of a kid going down a rabbit hole and ending up in this world where he's meeting all these sort of fairy tale villains." Even the name of the town itself - Grimley - is a nod to the Grimm's Fairy Tales.
Joey's wife, Teresa, also becomes engaged in the desperate race to locate Oleg. Previously willing to cast a blind eye on her husband's shady mob dealings, over the course of this harrowing night she, too, begins to question her husband's ultimate intent with Oleg as he resorts to more and more extreme measures to retrieve the gun and the kid.
After seeing Vera Farmiga in the film "Down to the Bone" for which she was awarded with the Best Actress Award in Sundance, the filmmakers cast her in the role of Joey's wife, Teresa, who provides some of the moral ballast of the film. Pierce says, " She's worked hard on her craft for years and years. She's just going to blow people away."
Walker concurs, "Vera's the real deal. You work with people like that and they up the ante. She comes in and she knows exactly where she's going and where she needs to be."
Farmiga describes working with Kramer as "a blast." She elaborates, "he does not shy away from his imagination, he doesn't shy away from what makes people uncomfortable, he doesn't shy away from his tenets, his philosophies, his principles as a filmmaker. And he doesn't shy away from having a great time and we've had a great time on set."
Kramer and Farmiga talked about her character being the morality of the film and she says, "that's what I was drawn to, I was drawn to her virtue. I love the way she loves everybody." She further describes her character as being "very aware that there's a dark, sketchy side to her husband that she knows nothing about. It's a bit of a question mark. But nonetheless she loves him very, very much and she believes in the goodness."
Production also considers the casting of newcomer Alec Neuberger as Nicky Gazelle and young industry veteran Cameron Bright as Oleg Yugorsky as veritable casting coups. Pierce recalls that "Alec was cast out of approximately seven hundred hopeful young actors. It was so hard to find kids to play this type of role. It's a very difficult role but Alec pulled it off. "
Farmiga explains, "the story is told really through their eyes. Nicky and Oleg are the heart and the soul of this piece." She adds, "I had a great time with those two boys - we were a loving, dysfunctional family on-set and off-set."
Palminteri, who plays Detective Rydell, rates rising star Cameron Bright as a natural talent. "He's just one of those kids that comes along and has that special thing. It's not often that that happens. It's not that he has studied acting for years, he was just born with that gift."
As a director/writer himself, Palminteri was deeply appreciative of Kramer's directorial style. "What I really admire about Wayne Kramer is he storyboards everything so he really has a set vision of what he sees. You just have to trust him and take the ride with him." He also concurs with Walker's appreciation of the script, "When I first read it, I loved it. I thought it was non-stop. If I keep turning the pages like that, I know it's a rockin' script. From the opening scene on, it just keeps moving."
A NEW LINE CINEMA presentation
In association with MEDIA 8 ENTERTAINMENT
A MEDIA 8 ENTERTAINMENT / TRUE GRIT PRODUCTION
A VIP MEDIENFONDS 1 & 2 / MDP FILMPRODUKTION CO-PRODUCTION
Synopsis and film notes courtesy of New Line/DDA
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