Movie Review: 'Weirdsville'

A hybrid of Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo styling and Trainspotting 's heroin chic, Weirdsville is one weird and wacky trip.

A quirky black comedy that, surely, puts people off ever experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs, Weirdsville is the story of two drug-addicted dumb-asses and the scrapes they get into one long, cold, Canadian winter night.

Mistakenly assuming that Matilda (the talented Taryn Manning— Hustle & Flow ) has overdosed on stolen drugs, Dexter (Scott Speedman—the Underworld movies) and Royce (Wes Bentley—the embarrassing Ghost Rider ) decide to dispose of her body at an abandoned drive-in movie theatre. What they didn't count on was the presence of satanic cult members who use the site for their rituals. Thus a Looney Tunes -ish chase is set in motion as Dexter, Royce and the resurrected Matilda try to out-run the Satanists and the drug dealer (Raoul Bhaneja— The Sentinel ) they stole from—all the while trying to pull off a heist which will get everyone off their backs and provide the next big hit.

With no rules of realism (thanks to the tripped-out state of mind our leads are always in) to govern events, Weirdsville is happy to just stumble from one ludicrous set-piece to another with little or no explanation. From a Home Alone -style bumbling robbery to an altercation with medieval midgets and one seriously unfortunate incident with an icicle, some of them prove funny, some fall flat. But one thing's for sure, you have to respect the uniqueness of what the film's trying to achieve.

Perhaps overreaching, at times it does feel as if Weirdsville is trying far too hard to be out there and different, and it undoubtedly runs out of steam two-thirds of the way through. You can understand why the actors were attracted to the central roles, though. Offering them the chance to totally let loose, Speedman has never been better whilst Bentley, sporting some seriously fantastic facial fuzz, is the best he's been since his breakthrough role in American Beauty .

Directed by indie darling Allan Moyle ( Pump up the Volume/Empire Records ), Weirdsville is one film that actually benefits from the over used, Tony Scott-esque manic visuals. Starting with the mid-nineties favourite of cue card character intros, Moyle quickly throws reversing film, jump cuts and out-of-focus shots into the directorial tricks mix. Obviously a graduate of the Guy Ritchie ( Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ) film school of editing, Moyle splices his rough-around-the-edges scenes together with whizz-bang cuts and embellished sound effects. It's a disorientating experience at times, which is unquestionably what Moyle is aiming for.

Manic, fast-paced, non-stop and off-kilter, Weirdsville is a unique vision that deserves props for being different. Weird is the word. But perhaps too weird, in the end, for its own good.

Three stars out of five