Rude in his attempt to be authentic, Vince, wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt, has lots of beer, weed, and coke in his bag. "You get stranger every year," says John, a filmmaker, who has a film entered in the Lansing Film Festival, asking why Vince broke up with Leah, his girlfriend of three years. Evasive, Vince hints at his dark side and her accusations of his "violent tendencies."

A volunteer firefighter in Oakland, Calif, Vince makes a living delivering dope to ex-hippies, including his station chief. "I think you can do better than you are," says John, expressing a more mature viewpoint. "Why is what you do better?" retorts Vince, mocking his friend's claim that films offer a debate over the direction in which society is headed.

He then mentions that Amy Randall, a girl they both dated during their senior year, lives in Lansing; she's now an assistant district attorney. Becoming argumentative, Vince prods at what happened between John and Amy the night of a party; John began seeing Amy after she and Vince broke up.

Based on screenwriter Stephen Belber's stage play, director Richard Linklater captures the differing recollections of three people and their reactions to an incident of the past; the camera ping-pongs back and forth between the characters in close quarters as they contest what actually happened, advantage shifting from one to another.

Scheming amoral Vince, employing "excessive linguistic pressure," sets earnest John up, surreptitiously taping his confession, and then in his self-righteous, obsessive crusade (or is he just taking out on John all of the things he feels guilty over?), alluding to something being wrong here, recommends (if John really is a different person from a decade earlier): "Maybe you should apologize."

Amy (Uma Thurman) arrives; earlier Vince had called and requested her driving over for dinner together. Finding John in the room as well and listening to their wrangling, keenly observing (her first boyfriend) Vince's plotting, planning, and pressuring, she says: "You haven't changed a bit." As the scar of the history and hurt from their senior year together reopens into a raw wound, Amy confuses an apologetic John with an entirely opposite memory of their night together before scaring Vince into a panic.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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