Movie Review for Self-Medicated (2007)


(Click Poster to Purchase)


Review #530 of 365
Movie Review of Self-Medicated (2007) [R] 107 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $9.00
Where Viewed: Regency Tamarac Square, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 13 September 2007
Time: 2:45 pm
DVD Release Date: Unscheduled (please check back)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer

Directed by: Monty Lapica (debut)
Written by : Monty Lapica (debut)

Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Diane Venora (Breaking Dawn) • Monty Lapica (debut) • Michael Bowen (The Death and Life of Bobby Z) • Greg Germann (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) • Kristina Anapau (Cursed) • Matthew Carey (2001 Maniacs) • Shane Stuart (debut) • William Stanford Davis ("Lincoln Heights") • Michael Mantell (Ocean's Thirteen) • Kelly Kruger (Mysterious Skin) • Karim Prince ("Freaky Links") • Glenndon Chatman (The Luck of the Irish) • Noah Segan (Adam & Steve) • Marcus Toji ("Zoey 101")

Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
While it's clear that writer / director / actor Monty Lapica has obvious and lasting talent, his film titled Self-Medicated plays a lot like an After School Special for the new millennium with some help from Fox Faith Films. The story, 'inspired by true events' some from Mr. Lapica's own life--though getting to the bottom of what is inspired and what isn't is not as easy as it should be, concerns high school senior, Andrew Eriksen (Monty Lapica), who, at age 15, lost the father he so dearly loved and has turned to drugs, alcohol, truancy, and malevolent mischief to lessen his pain. The film opens with a particularly repulsive scene of Andrew and his posse of miscreants shooting random people, drive by style, on the Strip in Las Vegas with a paint gun loaded with red paint balls. Oh, they think this is hysterical. That is, until, the police pull them over. His friends all flee and escape, but Andrew who was driving the car, gets hauled into the jail for what must seem to his poor, pill-addicted mother, Louise (Diane Venora), his umpteenth time.
"…an After School Special for the new millennium…"
She's so furious with him and yet loves him dearly she eventually forces herself to do the one thing she hopes can turn his life around. She hires a detox clinic to come and take him away for treatment. He awakes in the middle of the night to a team of men who bind and duct tape him before locking him in their van for the journey to St. George, Utah. While there, he and the others held there endure all sorts of mental and physical abuses under the threat of ultimately being sent to Samoa if all else fails. Andrew refuses to get the help he so obviously needs; and, instead, bucks the rules, messes with the heads of the other patients, tries to break the will of the instructors and psychologists, and believes at times that he's on morally superior ground vs. those running the place. Which may be true to a certain extent. He plans an escape attempt, but only he gets away. Back in Vegas, he returns to his old ways, but the program has changed him a bit more than he knew. He thinks he's on the upswing. He confronts his mother. They talk things through. He picks up a homeless man named Gabe who shares with him the light of God via unexpected Bible quotations and disappears unexpectedly at the end of their evening together. But, just when things look like he might be back on track, he learns his best friend knew his mom's plans to send him away and didn't warn him. He loses it, and finds himself on a plane to Hawai'i on the way to Samoa.

The story does have a good and happy ending. It does teach some valuable lessons. It's hard to tell though if the lessons are that parents ought to do a better job with the raising of their children or if children ought to work harder to make better choices in a world filled with excessive wealth and too much leisure time.

The first problem with the film, is that Monty Lapica looked too old to be playing a 17 year-old kid. He had a difficult time with the 'tender' parts that require a kid that's still caught both physically and mentally between the wanting to grow up and the not wanting to group up worlds of a 15-17 year-old, adolescent male. He looked and acted well past these years, and seemed to have no ability to conjure up the emotional state to regress into them.

Second, there's an underlying smugness to the film embodied in the character of Andrew that sends mixed signals from every angle of analysis. Is it ok for Andrew to lash out because his beloved father's dead? Is it ok for rich teens of Las Vegas to violate the law and do what they want because no one seems to care to stop them? Is Andrew the victim or the criminal? What message is Mr. Lapica trying to convey? It boils down to this issue, that like a needle in the mind, continues to gnaw at common sense. What message is intended when Louise finally gets the courage to send her son for treatment, and once there, he behaves like spoiled brat, denies he has problems, and then the place turns out to be corrupt?


Send This Review To a Friend
Related Products from Amazon.com
Other Projects Featuring Self-Medicated (2007)
Cast Members
Diane Venora • Monty Lapica • Michael Bowen
Greg Germann • Kristina Anapau • Matthew Carey
Shane Stuart • William Stanford Davis • Michael Mantell
Kelly Kruger • Marcus Toji • Glenndon Chatman
Director
Monty Lapica
Writer
Monty Lapica
Review-lite Self-Medicated (2007) [max of 150 words]
Without a doubt, Monty Lapica writer, director, and anctor in his debut feature film, Self-Medicated, has talent in the industry. Unfortunately, his film plays like an After School Special for the new millennium with very confusing lessons to teach.
Send This Review To a Friend
Reviewed by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)