Tom (Stephen Rea, V for Vendetta) is having a bad day. Not only was he evicted from his meager apartment, but the local employment office lost his placement application and is making him fill out a new one and it could be weeks before they interview him about a potential job. Topping it all off, after getting kicked out the park for vagrancy he gets hit by a car. Now he’s painfully stuck inside the vehicle’s windshield bleeding to death, his only hope to get to a hospital so they can free him from this horrific predicament. 

Stephen Rea is having a really bad day in ThinkFilms' Stuck

The thing is, retirement-home caregiver Brandi (Mena Suvari, American Beauty) doesn’t want anyone to know what happened. Normally she’s the most compassionate and caring of nurse's assistants, but now that she’s in-line for a promotion at work she doesn’t want anything to derail her chances for advancement. Color in the fact she’d tied one on in celebration just before the accident and Brandi is pretty positive she doesnt want her night’s activities being discovered by the police.

Stuck, supposedly inspired by a real-life tabloid event, is about a man trapped in a windshield and the woman too selfish and scared to do a darn thing to help him. That’s it, the whole gosh darn movie in one surrealistic nightmare of a nutshell, and if you think that’s a pretty flimsy thread to base a 90-plus minute narrative upon you probably wouldn’t be wrong.

Yet this seriously twisted concept makes perfect B-movie fodder for underground cult director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond). The filmmaker treats the story with brazen sincerity a without a hint of irony, never side-stepping the inherent coal-black humor found in bloodily twisted stumps within the scenario.

This is one of those movies were you laugh nervously, twitching wildly in your seat in uncomfortable queasiness yet still unable to take your eyes off of the things appallingly playing themselves out up on the screen. Fast, furious and totally out of control, Gordon takes the viewer on an inspired “Twilight Zone” thrill ride the likes of which would have made Rod Sterling proud, all of it coming to a conclusion so gloriously nasty in its vindictive viciousness I almost couldn’t believe my eyes.

Through all this blood, guts and grotesquery, Rea cuts a surprisingly sympathetic figure. His performance is so emotionally wrenching, yet so subtle and unforced, it feels as naturalistic and moving as almost any the acclaimed actor has ever given. It’s an efficiently beguiling piece of work on his part, the fact the majority of it is spent halfway inside (and halfway outside) a broken down Honda making it all the more incredible.

I wish I could say the same for Suvari. I’ve always liked the girl but she doesn’t quite make Brandi’s growing, “How could this happen to me?” amoral narcissism ring true. The last act goes a bit off the rails as well, Gordon and co-writer John Strysik’s (“Tales from the Darkside”) punchy script losing its grip as the world the two main characters inhabit increasingly goes right off the rails. 

Still, Stuck is certainly different, I have to give it that. Besides, even with its faults the movie is a hit-and-run on the entertainment meter, Gordon delivering an instant cult sensation worth taking for a test drive.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)

Additional Links

-  Stuck Theatrical Trailer