The New Year's Eve overdose of a Detroit jazz vocalist convinces her bassist and keyboardist to make a New Year's Resolution to kick their own habits. (The three are very close: flashbacks reveal they even pee together.) The bureaucratic obstacles ahead of them reach almost Kafka-esque proportions. But the raw realism of the thing tends to be showoffy ("Thinkin' about gettin' a penis implant" is the first line in the script, and "I don't want to hear that shit about your dick" follows along soon), almost as showoffy, in point of fact, as the more-acting-per-minute performance of Tim Roth. The gunned-down rapper Tupac Shakur appears here in his final role, and external circumstances lend extra reverberation to his line, "Lately I been feelin' like my luck's runnin' out." With Thandie Newton; written and directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall, who also plays a small part as a snappy-dressing drug pusher. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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