"Stuck" Review - Written by TonyD

“Stuck”
2008
BOMB out of ****
Director: Stuart Gordon
Cast: Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Russell Hornsby


As much as I could bag on Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg for making shit that people are going to forget in ten years, I will never put their films on my end of the year Worst of 2008 list. Maybe on my midpoint list, which is where a film like “Meet the Spartans” ended up on, but I’ll never include it on the final list because the filmmakers never really tried to begin with. But with a film like “Stuck,” you are dealing with experienced filmmakers. It doesn’t matter that Stuart Gordon was just a one-hit wonder, he knows how to make a movie.

And let’s face it anyway, “Re-Animator” sucked, and all it did was launch two less-than-par sequels that just managed to be worst than the first by THIS much.

“Stuck” just very well might be his worst film of his career, and one of the worst films of 2008. I’m not sure that it is worst than “Henry Poole Is Here” but it beats the shit out of the hideous that was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. And if it couldn’t get any worse, Stuart Gordon makes a film based on a tragic event look very comedic.

“Stuck” is based on a story from 2001 when some African American woman that we’ll call Mallard hit a homeless guy that we’ll call Biggs with her car. He became stuck through the windshield, and Mallard never told anyone. She returned home, to do drugs, drink heavily, and fuck her boyfriend, and acted like nothing had ever happened.

Now, replace Mallard with Brandi, (Mena Suvari) Biggs with Tom, (Stephen Rea) and give Suvari cornrows, and you got yourself a movie.

And given the movie’s storyline, you would think that “Stuck” would be an intense thriller, but all that I did was laugh throughout the movie, in an unintentional way, of course. When Brandi hits Tom with her car, it almost seems like I’m watching something out of the “Scary Movie” films. You don’t feel bad for Tom; you just want to laugh at how stupid the guy is for not looking both ways while crossing the street. You don’t want to feel bad for Brandi either; you just want to poke her with a fucking stick throughout the movie.

Here is something even more comical though. Brandi’s black boyfriend, played by Russell Hornsby, fucks her in the middle of the movie without knowing that there is a homeless guy in her windshield. She goes out for some time, and while he STILL doesn’t know that his girlfriend has a homeless dude in the car windshield, he goes out and fucks another bitch. This doesn’t only show to me that Stuart Gordon is a racist little twat-cake, but the fact that he gives Suvari cornrows is almost like he is saying that he wants to be black… or that she wants to be black. Wasn’t it great when Suvari was banging every guy in “American Beauty?”

I think that the only thing I can really feel sorry for is the celluloid that was used to make this film, because behind all odds, I think “Stuck” could have been a really good and enjoyable movie, and instead of it being on my Worst of 2008 list, it could have been thrown somewhere on my Best of 2008 list, or at least on the Runner’s Up. However, the project was doomed to begin with and the more I think about it the more madder I get. For example…

Starring Mena Suvari as the stupid white girl with cornrows – Okay, so maybe Mena Suvari is a great actress and maybe she does have a little bit of talent in her body, but from what I’ve seen from this and “Beauty Shop,” all I can tell is that she is just a wannabe white chick. That’s might work maybe in Camden, but in a horror film directed by the guy who directed “Re-Animator?” You might as well just go find work at a donut shop.

Having Stephen Rea play the guy stuck in the windshield – Something tells me that this was just trying to be a joke because it looks like that Stephen Rea IS a homeless guy, but did these motherfuckers forget that Stephen Rea is an Oscar nominated actor? Last time I checked, “The Crying Game” wasn’t a comedy, but since his work in “V For Vendetta,” this guy should go into fucking stand-up! He has starred in two of the funniest films in the last two years – “The Reaping” and “Stuck” – and I think these are funnier films that “Hamlet 2.” What does that have to say about the quality of the movie?

Allowing the ending getting to where it “got to” – Eventually, the film is going to have to take itself seriously… AND START ACTING LIKE A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE. Clichés fire around, and it is like a never-ending parade of infected horseshit. From the time that the black guy discovers that there is a homeless guy is stuck in the car windshield, “Stuck” has now made itself not only look like a hilarious comedy, but a hilarious Hollywood satire.

Putting Stuart Gordon in the director’s chair – Lord knows that Hollywood shuck the world and all of the directors fell off. It just so happens that in this case Stuart Gordon hung on. I’ve watched more than enough movies to know that the director makes the movie, not the cast or the screenplay. There is too much inexcusable humor in “Stuck” that I possibly can’t begin. Maybe Stuart Gordon can make a decent film one day, but until then, we can sit here waiting.