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Stuck

5/10

Stars: Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Russell Hornsby, Rukiya Bernard, Sharlene Royer

Director: Stuart Gordon

This is a well-made bloodsoaked chiller that just can't overcome its basic absurdity. Giggles result, not from the acting and direction, but from the implausibility of the situations. In the writers' defence, though, the plot is apparently based on an incident that actually happened. Only in America.

Brandi (Suvari, who also co-produced) is an outwardly dedicated care worker at a hospice for the elderly. By night, though, she's a pill-popping party girl with a decidedly dodgy boyfriend. Full of Ecstasy and talking on the phone as she drives (a pretty lethal combination), Brandi runs into Tim (Rea), a newly-homeless man, who is catapulted on to her bonnet and through the windscreen, where he remains stuck, held in place by shards of glass.

Of course, Tom should expire PDQ and Brandi should get him to a hospital straight away but, if either of these things were allowed to happen, we wouldn't have a film. Suvari and Rea play it dead straight even though, like the rest of the characters here, they're pure cardboard. But it's well directed by veteran schlockmeister Gordon, who makes the most of the action involved in the film's absurd developments.

David Quinlan

Canada 2007. UK Distributor: High Fliers. Colour by deluxe.
85 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 1, Swearing 2.

Review date: 02 Jan 2009