A drug dealer, a pedophile, a low-down two-timer, a wannabe actress, and some sort of spaced-out, retarded writer are all stuck in the desert together. The punchline? Well, there is no punchline; this is simply the set-up for the feature film “Stuck,” which I figured would contain plenty of punchlines seeing as the first third of the film has our characters, stuck in a stalled car in the middle of the desert, telling wacky stories about recent boo-boos in their lives. That’s cool with me, but there are a couple problems in the case of this film.
First off – these stories are only barely funny. As the tales are told, we’re flashbacked so we can see them acted out and the most I got out of these adventures in time was a chuckle or two. For example – one of the guys, a 26-year-old, is telling a story about his 17-year-old fling, so we see him sitting on the couch with this girl as she’s telling him about her father who is a narcoleptic. A little spooked, he asks, “He…likes…sex…with the dead?” There it is. To me, that’s the apex of funny in this movie.
The second problem is that after mid-way into the film, it starts to take itself seriously and keeps heading in this direction, aiming for a kind of – “Let’s forget the past and look toward a brave new future” type of deal. Hey, even if the jokes weren’t all that gut busting, at least they weren’t bad enough to make me want to jump out of a window. Seen plenty of those and I have the scars to prove it. But once things started getting serious, such as the two-timer and the wannabe actress facing a make-up, or break-up type of situation, my attention began drifting away and it kinda stayed elsewhere until the ending credits rolled.
Still, there’s definite talent bubbling here and that’s what’ll keep you watching.
