Throwing Down

((Crime drama -- Color))

A Night Light Films production. Produced by David Schaye. Executive producer, Ted Jessup. #Directed, written by Lawrence O'Neill. Camera (color), Tim McCann; editor, Marisa Benedetto; production design, Blue Kraning; art direction, Adam Lawrence; costume design, Valeri Kerman; sound (Dolby), David Powers; associate producer, Patrick Maschio; assistant director, Jonah Kaplan. Reviewed at Hamptons Film Festival, Oct. 18, 1995. Running time: 90 min. Pete Gulley ... Jeffrey Donovan A.J. Railey ... Kevin Pinassi Lynn ... Colleen Werthmann Gregg Sheele ... Timothy Wheeler Wade ... Scott Shepherd Boasting a compelling narrative and a matching bravura visual style, "Throwing Down," an audaciously original crime drama, marks a splendid debut by writer-director Lawrence O'Neill. The deserved winner of the Goldfish Star, the top jury prize at the 1995 Hamptons Film Festival, this suspenseful, impeccably directed pic should have no problems snaring theatrical release by an entrepreneurial distributor willing to take risks with a small but most unusual film. "Throwing Down," like most recent indie crime pictures, suffers from the "Tarantino effect," though only briefly. After the first act, in which the two lowlife protagonists are introduced, the film takes an original path, one saddled with thrilling twists and turns that are contained in a heavily plotted narrative.

O'Neill constructs a densely packed physical -- and emotional -- landscape for his two antiheroes, Pete (Jeffrey Donovan) and A.J. (Kevin Pinassi), who get by on minor scams, such as selling fake cocaine to naive out-of-towners.

Things change, however, when Pete observes a scumbag shipping a bag of drugs at the post office. In a quick maneuver, he swaps the address label, mailing the valuable package to the same gullible Virginia tourists they had earlier ripped off.

The greedy but none-too-bright duo head to Virginia, where they anxiously await the parcel's arrival. But a sudden visit by Lynn (Colleen Werthmann) to the house (which belongs to her b.f.) entirely changes the psychological dynamics, and a tense cat-and-mouse game follows, with the trio taking turns as captors and prisoners, torturers and victims.

O'Neill writes extremely taut dialogue, disclosing in bits and pieces the characters' personalities. His hard-boiled, pulpy lingo is not only entertaining but makes serious points about lowlifes who don't know their place, trying to be shrewder than they are.

Neither Pete nor A.J. has a clue about what they're getting into, or where they will end up.

Scenario is played out well by three gifted performers, Donovan, Pinassi and Werthmann, whose ensemble style is so naturalistic as to create the illusion that their interactions are improvised.

Considering that most of the action occurs within a single set, O'Neill keeps things moving, with edgy tension from first frame to last.

It's simply a delight to observe a director -- and a new one at that -- who's in full control of his material and knows how to create an effortlessly fluid style for his story. Strong on visual invention, which heavily relies on restless, hand-held camera, director shows adeptness at subtly modulating his yarn.

"Throwing Down" is a small, modest picture, but in its audacity it belongs in the same league of brazenly impressive debuts as the Coens' "Blood Simple," Nick Gomez's "Laws of Gravity" and Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs."

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