Little Man (Thomas Guiry) has big dreams. He wants to get into real estate, make decent money, drive a nice car, get a hot “bitch” and not take anyone’s s**t. He’s a guy with a natural gift for sales, and he’s smart to boot. He’s also impatient, so instead of working his way to the top he goes the far more riskier route of becoming a pot dealer in his hometown of Bristol, Connecticut. This is no ordinary weed he’s pushing, though. This is super powerful stuff, the likes of which people in Bristol will pay a lot of money for. Naturally, the cops are more than a bit concerned when this stuff starts showing up on the streets.
“Bristol Boys” is based on the true story of a group of friends who went into the drug dealing business together and ended up feeling the brunt of the war on drugs. The stuff in between is what legends are made of — sweet cars, stripper girlfriends, blow, violence and respect. Arrests, suicide and betrayals quickly follow.
Writer/director Brandon David has made a stylish, funny and smart film. The drug dealers are, for the most part, very likable guys who try their best to live up to a value system meant to keep them out of jail (and it all falls apart when they forgot about those values), and the cops come across as people who are willing to play fast and loose with the law in order to get their man. It doesn’t make the dealers out to be heroes, though. It shows them as very flawed people who are trying to get by in the best way they can.
They realize the American dream isn’t obtainable if they follow the usual paths, so they take the only road available to them … and it has some pretty horrible consequences.
Money is a powerful narcotic. So is power. Both tend to corrupt when left unchecked, a point this film makes perfectly clear. Congrats to David for showing it in a way that isn’t patronizing or moralistic. That’s not an easy thing to pull off, but this film does it about as good as it can be done, making it a future classic in the world of true crime flicks.
