Shooting Heroin, a review
Who, if anyone is to blame for the opioid crisis? And who has a right to administer justice toward the blamed. Those are the question “Shooting Heroin,” asks.
I’ve been struggling a bit to find my voice amidst the COVID-19 quarantine, and this review won’t be the outlet for all I’m feeling. I can’t help but wonder what the reviews for films released shortly after 9/11 mentioned about the attacks. How filmmakers feel today about those pieces written about the films they toiled over, circumstantially being released to the world after that tragedy. Films certainly stand alone, but I have always said - particularly when discussing a film’s awards chances, that the zeitgeist, the moment - what a person brings to the table, has an impact on how art is perceived.
“Shooting Heroin” is being released during a pandemic. That cannot be denied. But its timing is incredibly poignant. I have seen many people, particularly in the beginning of this current crisis feel the need to compare the losses of COVID-19 to those of a variety of things, including addiction. Although those unhelpful death toll comparisons have waned, I couldn’t help but consider the two losses side by side while watching this film.
I moved to Los Angeles from an idyllic small town. Very different than the one depicted in “Shooting Heroin.” The town in “Shooting Heroin” is almost dream like in its portrayal of both its characters and the look depicted with a wonderfully independent touch by cinematographer John Honore’. Where, in Oxford, MS and even LA, to some extent addiction and its consequences are somewhat hidden under a veneer of white picket fences and blue skies respectively, in “Shooting Heroin” the epidemic is completely out in the open.
Almost instantly the film has an ominousness to it, playing like a horror movie, as helmed by writer/director Spencer T Foimar. Where we almost immediately hit a roadblock is in the realization that it is hard to make an inanimate object (heroin, in this case) the villain in a movie.
So, where do the characters in the film turn their vitriol. “The dirty, fucking dealer,” as expressed by the wonderful Cathy Moriarty’s Beth. She plays the Mom to our lead character, a brooding Adam, played by Alan Powell. They have just experienced a final straw loss that is the catalyst to an already bubbling conflict between those left behind and opioids.
I certainly understand the urge to blame someone…because despite how many studies have been done and how many opinions and treatment modalities are out there…if we truly, fully understood addiction everyone who wanted to stop using could, and we could cure this. I also understand the urge to place blame on the most obvious. If it’s truly, not a choice, blame must be placed on the dealers, right? Not quite.
For those of us close to addiction, the vigilante trio (played so earnestly by the aforementioned Powell along with Sherilyn Fenn and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) plays a bit heavy handedly, but I think for the person merely touched (as we all are, to some extent) by addiction, it will seem a more logical trajectory.
Some of the best moments of the film come when our trio begin figuring out how they will individually and collectively take on this problem. Do they go to the doctors, the pharmacists. Do they make homemade signs at the entry of the school? Impassioned speeches to students to simply care more. Bag searches…parking lot surveillance. Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
In the end, as might be expect, our Adam finally surrenders to the most obvious and easy villain target. What makes “Shooting Heroin,” ultimately interesting in its questions, is the final moments. A secret that all addicts and most drug dealers already know, one that Adam discovers that delivers the final blow that no one really knows anything.
Shooting Heroin is available now via All Cable, Satellite, Telco, and Digital TVOD and EST platforms and services will go live on April 3, including, on cable: InDemand and MSOs; Concast; Charter; Cox; Spectrum; Vubiquity; Verizon Fios; ATT U-Verse; DirecTV; Dish Network-IPVOD/EST; and Sling, and on transactional digital including: iTunes; Amazon; GooglePlay; Microsoft X-Box; Vimeo; Sony PSN; Fandango; and Vudu.