Review of Johns

Introduction

Seasoned, twitchy hustler John (David Arquette) spends Christmas Eve desperately clawing for 300 dollars to pay for his dream-night of indulgence at the luxurious Plaza Hotel. Along with best friend Donner, empathic, curb-skating debutante Lukas Haas, they scramble for the cash and attempt to dodge mobsters and cops around the deadly, acidic streets of LA’s seedy underworld.

Video

Not awful. Inexplicably fullscreen, but the picture isn’t half bad, the arid landscapes not quite popping off the screen, but I expected much worse.

Audio

Average. Probably Dolby 2.0.

Features

Nothing. And no, scene selections are not an extra feature.

Conclusion

A feature about a duo of male prostitutes on the fringe of the urban wilderness may sound like a bleak proposition, but there’s a surprising amount of humor and tenderness in Scott Silver’s film that overcomes its otherwise drab, unambiguous static-verite. The race-against time plot is irritating and arbitrary, at times even distracting us from the character dynamics and sure-fire performances: Arquette exudes a palpable feeling of anxious paranoia, and Haas is grounded and natural. Great cameos too, from Elliott Gould, Keith David and Arliss Howard.

Superficially, Silver’s approach is reminiscent of urban photo-realists like Mary Ellen Mark and Larry Clarke, albeit less grim and lurid, Silver lending his characters the weary defiance of Mark’s lost souls, forced onto the mean streets of the big cities, from a society that has rejected them. Silver’s film is more interested in the relationship between John and Donner, and it would have been more involving to place them in the greater scenario of a homeless, fringe community, rather than the forced, inconsequential narrative we are left with.

The sun-bleached strip is an arid, decaying wasteland, cluttered with hidden menace and haunted emptiness, everyone is either homeless, a hooker, a john or a cop. The Hollywood Hills are a distant memory miles in the distance, masked by a choking veil of smog. We most certainly aren’t in Kansas anymore kiddo. There is a certain contrivance in the connection of the vignettes (allegedly all true) laced together in a colorful, but slightly silly narrative of coincidence. The leap from one tawdry, funny or bizarre episode to another belies the otherwise powerful resonance of reality.

This is certainly not for all tastes, the subject matter is inherently repellent and the predictably tragic climax hits home but leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Nonetheless, this is a surprising, sincere and a not un-rewarding experience.