In this scathing and subversive social comedy, life in post riot Los Angeles is dissected under the sardonic eye of John Boyz, an unemployed thirty nothing flounderer on Venice Beach who is trying to figure out what to do with his life. John can’t be bothered with apathy, but no matter how much he wants to help people, he is too immobilized to do anything useful. Haunted by chronic insomnia and impending sense of doom, all he can do is watch, and John is an avid observer.
Director: Peter McCarthy.
Writers: Peter McCarthy, Jo Harvey Allen (additional dialogue), John Cusack (additional dialogue)
Stars: James Le Gros, Shaka, Zander Schloss, John Cusack, Nina Siemaszko, Jeremy Piven, Dolores Deluce, Eddie Baytos, Maritza Rivera, Yolanda Garcia, Ángel García, Tom Cortese, Therman Statom, Margaret McNally, Anna Wacks, Gary Gershaw, Bill Fishman, Bobby Collins, Ted Raimi, Ned Bellamy, Brigid McBride, Steve Buscemi, Alex Cox, Timothy P.J. McKee, Cynthia Ojeda, Stokely Chaffin, Nelson Lyon, Billy Bob Thornton, Dave Robertson, Hugh McKay, Mary Portser, Dave Navarro, Kim Wayans, Catherine Butterfield, Ethan Hawke, Ed Pansullo, Alex Michel, Lisa Zane, Ebbe Roe Smith, Fernando Cruz Jr., Demetrius Navarro, Brian Wimmer, Olivia Barash, Doug Williams, Kelly Coffield Park, Jo Harvey Allen, Biff Yeager, Sy Richardson.
1994 Sundance Film Festival – Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic).
More drama than comedy! Although no analyse of social problems and no solutions are presented, one gets a small description of those problems in the US.
This film stays in one’s head
I highly recommend it, makes one thinks about the failures of the western society, not just poverty, but also lack of empathy, superficiality in their personal relationships, and so on. lm probably wrong about this film not presenting a solution…