LONDON (2005)

Directed by Hunter Richards. Starring Chris Evans, Jessica Biel, Joy Bryant, Jason Statham, Kelli Garner. Comedy/Romance.  Synopsis: A young man with a drug addiction and volatile personality deals with the news that his former girlfriend is moving across the country without telling him by crashing her going away party.

Now, for those of you who watch movies often and sometimes find yourself decrying the lack of imagination from Hollywood, this will warm your heart as it is a very different type of film, told in a unique and brusque way that, for some will be funny, but for others maybe not.

We meet Syd (Chris Evans) in the opening frames as he receives a phone call at his modest apartment. We don't hear the substance of the call, but its obvious from Syd's reaction-pretty much destroying his home-that he is not pleased with what he has just heard.  It soon turns out that the scoop Syd just received is that his former girlfriend, London (Jessica Biel Powder Blue) is moving away and having a going away party thrown at the spacious apartment of one her rich friends. Only problem is that Syd wasn't invited.

Well, old Syd drops the first of what will be countless F-bombs, verifies this information with a mutual friend of his and London's (Joy Bryant) and proceeds to start snorting prodigious amounts of cocaine as he resolves to crash the party. He meets up with a professional looking coke dealer named Bateman (Jason Statham Crank) and the two of them snort some coke together, with Syd convincing his new friend to crash the shindig with him.

What follows is, primarily, the two of them in this spacious bathroom, doing line after line of cocaine, sharing some with the occasional visitor to the bathroom, and talking about deep topics such as religion and pain. Frankly, a lot of what they have to say is hilarious, though taken against the backdrop of their drug use, its is definitely what might be called "dark humor".

Much of the story is told in flashback, as we see a slightly more clean-cut Syd in some of his situations with London. Their relationship can only be described as "stormy" as the hotheaded Syd and the chameleon like London seemed to always have some major cross to bear, whether its Syd's incessant jealousy or volatile temper, or London's questionable practice of fibbing now and then to him.

The whole key to the story is believing that these two people have a strong attraction and love for each other, and think that they do as presented in the film. Whether they should, based on their shallow natures, is another question.

The acting in this one is very good, all of the main characters are good actors, though the majority of the story is built around Statham and Evans. Statham is especially good in his self deprecating yet self centered role. Evans is playing such a different character from the one that most probably know him from (Cellular) , that I had to look again to make sure it was the same guy, which is the mark of a good actor when its not dependent on makeup.

The ending is a little bit different, not surprising at all, but done in such a way as to leave us hanging as to what will happen next, or how we feel about the very different direction the story took in the last 15 minutes of the film. I didn't care for the ending all that much, but its the kind that 10 different people will feel 10 different ways about. 

Warning: if you pick up this film, you will see a lot of drug use, and a kind of glorification of the hedonistic lifestyle of the young and wealthy. If that bothers you, you may want to reconsider, although I think the point is to parody that life style and/or show its emptiness without love.

Some will really like London, some will really dislike it.

Aside from the "left me hanging ending", I liked it.