(IMAGE: Loaded Dice Films)
Prime Video. 2014. Drama.115 minutes.
RATING: 3 out of 4
Mickey (Donavon Warren) is the kind of guy who, in a different film franchise, might be found locked into a rusty trap, sawing through his leg to save his life. A paraplegic, he has a desperate urge to kill himself, but the apparent inability to find a working method. And after several attempts fail, he realizes he needs help. Not help to escape depression, mind you, but help to end his life. So he makes it his goal to find the craziest, most desperate guy he can imagine, and pay that person to shoot him in the head.
The Jigsaw killer might force him to “live or die – make your choice.” But Mickey’s path, while nowhere near as accelerated as a time-sensitive Saw contraption, is similarly hurt-to-heal in the long run. Because, counter-intuitively, he finds his reason to live when he discovers heroin, and there’s something wonderfully anti-expectation about that. Mickey may be the main character in the story, but his actions are mostly the exact opposite of heroic. Yet, in the bond he develops with homeless fellow quad Drake (Patrick Hume, who has a LONG resume of characters named things like “Homeless Man,” “Sidewalk Preacher,” and “Meth Head Willy”), the cloud that envelops his life develops a silver lining.
Drake’s no noble pauper; he’s happy to kill Mickey for quick cash. But when immediate methods don’t work out as easily as they ought, he decides to introduce his newfound associate to the joys of hookers and blow. However, considering neither of them has any feeling below the waist, the hookers are more for sympathy and cocaine than the usual professional services. Mickey’s initially reluctant to indulge, then swiftly realizes that since he wants to die anyway, there’s nothing to fear from AIDS or overdoses.
The movie’s almost two hours, so it has a lot more story than that. The wheeled twosome make their way around several different Los Angeles locations, experiencing both the hardships and some of the relative freedoms that come with being marginalized and ignored. In a particularly absurd moment that encompasses both ends of that dichotomy, they set each other on fire with whiskey and engage in a slap fight. Warren codirects with Tim Gagliardo from his own script, but the city, as seen from a bum’s eye view, is perhaps the real star. To those who’ve seen it, Wheels evokes J.F. Lawton’s excellent Jackson, starring the late Charles Robinson, in which two homeless men attempt to enjoy a $20 bill together for the day. Mickey was doing okay financially before all the self-harm, so he has considerably more than a Jackson to get in trouble with. But it’s not enough to buy them out of a jam with Drake’s dealer, Elvis (Nathanyael Grey)
Peppered throughout are memories of Mickey’s childhood that, while ostensibly tearjerking, are sometimes so horrible as to be absurd. Dad indirectly accuses him of the murder of Santa Claus; mom gives him a brick as a Christmas present. Jeez, no wonder he hates life. The flashbacks take a different turn at a certain point, but fewer of them might go a longer way. It’s only from reading the synopsis afterward that I realized he’s supposed to be an amnesiac regaining his first flashes of the past, rather than just a wounded inner child who can only dream about his most memorable traumas. (Though he is still that, to some extent.) The memories culminate in a plot development that initially seems quite implausible, but without spoiling, let’s just say I looked it up, as Warren undoubtedly did as well, and everything shown is within the range of reality.
In addition to strong, egoless performances from Warren and Hume, special mention also must go to Diana Gettigner as Janet, the ostensible hooker who takes a shine to Mickey. She’s the right mix of gentle and effed-up, if not in the perfect combination to be a totally winning match for him. And Kevin McCorkle, who plays generic cops as often as Hume plays homeless guys, matter-of-factly portrays Mickey’s father in two different time periods. His performance that changes based on his son’s shifts in perception feels deceptively simple, but expertly plays on the fact that the actor has the “look” of a generic movie cop.
In a movie clearly meant to be his calling card, Warren boldly resists clear redemption arcs and actor vanity for a down-and-dirty story that’s not trying to offer role models to anybody. These characters are not your typical movie-model disabled, but nor are they unworthy of recognition as humans, suffering. Even when they may be beyond help, they’re not beyond connecting. Having lost almost everything in a dreamlike city, all they want to do is sleep, and space out…and you feel it. Just as surely as Warren sells the wrist-cutting he does off-camera with pitch-perfect sound and wincing, so does the lure of the high become clear even to a viewer who’s never done hard drugs.
John Kramer might not approve that they take nearly two hours to do it, but in the end, characters will make their choices. If you choose to watch, you shouldn’t regret yours.
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