I'm a long-time fan of Jim Gaffigan's stand up comedy and to a lessor degree his books as well. His method of self-deprecating comedy and the voices he uses in his delivery is a very different style than any other comedian out there and even though he only had about 3 good stand-up specials in his repertoire, they were all pretty top drawer.
Once that was over though, Jim seemed to be at a crossroads of what to do next. He kept writing books but people figured out that he was simply re-hashing old stand up material into made up scenarios that likely never actually even happened. Then he did some voice-over work but that didn't really work for him either. Then he had his own TV show that mirrored his life to some degree but it failed to catch on with viewers. So when I saw that he had a supporting role in non-comedic "true story" drama, I was intrigued to say the least. I also had my doubts that he would be able to pull the role off.
Boy, did he ever pull it off.
As you can tell by looking at the poster, Jim is not the star of this. It was marketed as a Josh Hartnett film and Jim's name is barely even mentioned even though he has a major role in the entire production. The acting done by all in this film is pretty outstanding, but it was Jim's performance that really stood out to me and many others since we didn't really think that he was capable of something like this.
The story is about a young recovering addict who is trying to turn his life around by doing odd jobs and making his way the best he can without getting re-involved with heroin. He seems to be making real headway but then one day he meets a friend on a boat and ends up meeting someone named "Picker" on his houseboat and gets involved in drugs again, but this time in a rather lucrative dealing side of things.
Picker is played by Jim Gaffigan and I am not going to apologize for hijacking this review to write almost exclusively about him.
Despite what we know about Jim, he is actually a very large person and apparently, can be extremely manipulative and intimidating in a role like this. He completely pulled it off and I can understand the fear that the real main character "Daniel" felt whenever dealing with him.
Another great aspect of this film is that it is based on real events in Canada and is a docudrama of sorts that looks into the corruption of the Canadian Drug Enforcement Agency who needed to be able to pad their numbers on a quota of big-time busts and how Daniel was set up to be one of those big time busts despite his very limited involvement in the entire thing.
If the way the events are portrayed happened at all like they are presented in the film, this was a rather elaborate sting that was completely set up by Canadian officials and Daniel was simply a pawn they used to further their own careers. Daniel ends up doing life or perhaps the getting the death penalty in Thailand where the big pickup of heroin was arranged with complete knowledge of the Canadian officials that were there acting as if they were big time drug dealers. Daniel was merely the go-between and had no idea what was going on. He was also the only person that was busted for what went down even though there were multiple deaths in the sting.
I've already given away enough of the story but before anyone accuses me of spoilers know that most of what I just said appears in the trailer anyway. The overall outcome of this story should be evident before you even watch it because if it didn't pan out that way, they wouldn't have made a film about it.
Should I watch it?
I'm fanboi-ing over here about Jim Gaffigan but even if you were to take him out of the film and replace him with another actor my opinion about how good this movie is would be around the same. It is a very good film and also quite important for anyone out there that thinks as I do and doesn't believe the government really has the citizenry's best interests at heart.
I was surprised to find out that this $7 million film barely made $130,000 at the box-office and I can't understand how that happened. I also can't believe that they made it for ONLY $7 million considering the fact that filming had to take place in at least 2 countries.
This could be considered one of those "hidden gems" since almost no one has seen this movie. If you enjoy being a person that has seen something good that is outside of the mainstream, then this could be your film! I for one look forward to seeing Gaffigan in future thrillers because he has proven that he can handle the roles.
This movie is currently available on Netflix in most regions
