Angry, rowdy Sonny James (an excellent performance by Jeremy Sisto) and his hard-bitten, but more sensible best buddy Anthony DeMarie (an equally fine portrayal by Eric Michael Cole) are two dirt poor guys from the wrong side of town whose lives take a turn for the worse after one of their pals gets killed in a hunting accident. Anthony has a chance to get out of the dreary one-horse rural community because of his writing talent. On the other hand, the increasingly volatile and enraged Sonny sees reverting to crime as his sole option in his scrappy and hopeless existence. Writer/director Mark Anthony Galluzo covers some pretty familiar troubled adolescent territory with his debut feature, but still hits the bull's eye thanks to an admirable lack of cloying sentiment, a strong and flavorsome evocation of the backwoods location (this film was shot in Florida), a first-rate soundtrack of spot-on blues and country songs, an astute and compassionate depiction of dead-end lives marked by despair, poverty, and bitterness, and, most of all, a story that smartly shows these fellows as they are without trying to hard to explain them or passing judgment on their actions. Sisto and Cole are both outstanding in the leads. The rest of the cast is likewise uniformly on the money sound and convincing. Jaime Pressly in particular is surprisingly sturdy and impressive as the sweet C.J. Callum. Appearing in smaller roles are Grace Zabriskie as Anthony's weary, worn-out mother Mrs. DeMarie, Jonathan Banks as the stern Judge Callum, and Veronica Cartwright as the wise, supportive Principal Evans. Michael Muhlfriedel's twangy, harmonic score hits the soulful spot. Thom Stukas' polished cinematography gives the picture a nice slick look. The inevitable tragic ending might be predictable, but it's very poignant and powerful just the same. Well worth seeing.
Review of Trash
