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Dean (Denton True) is a homeless crackhead, who at one point od's,
falls of a roof onto a trash heap, and after he realizes his girlfriend
Diana (Ewa Maria Wojcik) and best friend Shaun (Liam Burke) have just
abandoned him and walked on to the next hit, he decides to go clean - and
is almost beat to a pulp when falling asleep on the subway, but saved by
Maria (Chanel Mack), a "guardian angel", as in voluntary social
worker. And Maria might really be the positive influence in his life, as
she offers him abode and helps him looking for a job - and really manages
to straighten Dean out to some extent. Thing is, she also wants something
from Dean in return, she wants him to lead her to drug pushers - who she
can then shoot dead. At first that doesn't faze Dean too much, as he
really wants to break with his former life, even if that means some of his
friends from back when are killed - but things aren't going super smooth
in the longer run, as eventually, somehone has tracked down Maria and put
a hit on her, and suddenly there are dead bodies in her apartment. Also,
Diana wants back into Dean's life, and after he agrees to meet with her,
he has a relapse - and doesn't even himself believe his excuse that it was
just a one-off. On top of that, Maria's operations are getting more and
more dangerously, soon putting Dean in the line of fire as well ... A
Drunk Scorpion Will Sting Itself to Death is nothing if not a highly
original genre blend: On one hand it's social drama, on the other
vigilante thriller, only without the elephant tears usually identified
with the former, nor the reactionary attitude identified with the latter.
In fact, given its premise, the film manages to stay admirably objective,
and (at least to my knowledge) it's one of the very few films that
actually gives crackheads some depth and even a raison d'être instead of
just using them as scum (at worst) or story catalyst (at best) for some
anti-drug drama. But what really makes this movie is not so much its idea
but its execution, it's a clever script that weaves above genres and a
romantic subplot together rather effortlessly and in a very charming way
that manages to entertain thoughout. And it's of course also thanks to
very down-to-earth performances that this works quite as well, making this
a pretty cool film, really.
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