Customer Reviews

Twist

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It seems everyone knows the Charles Dickens' novel 'Oliver Twist', if not from reading it, viewing old movie forms, or from seeing the long-running musical adaptation 'Oliver!'. And knowing that Dickens had a penchant for exposing forced child labor and abuse in the darker parts of London's seedy side, creating affecting tales of woe, only to find a happy ending in the last pages - knowing that may bring surprise at the adaptation of Dickens by screenwriter/director Jacob Tierney.

But TWIST is a contemporary look at issues that persist, this time around the boys housed and fed by Fagin and kept in line by Bill Sykes are not pickpockets but hustlers. This adaptation is as searingly disturbing as was Dickens' novel when it was published: runaway boys in Toronto find a means of existence by hustling johns on the cold streets and turning over their earnings to Fagin who in turn serves as their pimp. The evil Bill Sykes is retained in this version, cleverly off screen in visibility, but his misdeeds are still in view in his drug dealing and his abuse of the boy's kind 'surrogate mother', Nancy.

So the basic story remains intact and the message of the original is as tough to see, but the real difference is in Tierney's refusal to provide a happy ending - a decision that truly makes this excellent film more powerful.

The main character in TWIST is Dodge (the Artful Dodger) (Nick Stahl in a superb performance that grabs your heart and never lets go) who does his hustling but also is addicted to heroin. He befriends another runaway lad named Oliver (Joshua Close) who needs shelter and love and is drawn into the Fagin stable. Fagin (Gary Farmer) is a multifaceted character who at once keeps his boys in line out of fear of Bill Sykes' demands, yet has a very soft spot for his charges. The boys (including Charley played by Moti Yona) often meet at the Three Cripples Diner where Nancy (Michele-Barbara Pelletier) serves them food and caring, despite her omnipresent physical evidence of Bill Sykes' abuse.

Dodge looks after his protégé Oliver, introduces him to the world of hustling, and nurtures him in a way that reflects Dodge's own needs. Oliver falls in love with Dodge but the feelings and approaches are one-sided. We finally discover a bit of Dodge's past when his older brother David (Tygh Runyan) visits and tries unsuccessfully to resolve old family problems (an abusive father). Their midnight antagonistic confrontations supply some of the more memorable moments in the film.

The seeds of corruption inherent in this bad life play to many tragedies and disclosing them would rob the film of its power. The circle of unfortunate circumstances comes round and we are left feeling deeply about these unlucky kids and their lifestyle. One of the many reasons this film works is the director's refusal to include gratuitous scenes of sexual encounters, a technique that makes those obvious encounters all the more powerful because they are left to the imagination of the audience.

The cinematography captures all the filth, despair, cold and hopelessness of the back streets of Toronto. This is a tough film to take, but one that makes a major impact and should be seen to appreciate the extremes to which our runaway kids go to survive in times of the lack of meaningful love. Recommended.

Poor naïve Oliver. Mommy has passed away and he never knew his daddy. After a series of misfortunate events, he has found himself to be a 16 year old orphan/ runaway on the streets of Toronto. Lucky for him, while hanging out in a local café, he is discovered by Dodge, who seems to have a little experience in recognizing poor lost souls with no where to go.

Dodge is rather street wise, after all; he has been pounding the pavement nightly for quite sometime as a hustler himself. He offers Oliver some food and a place to stay, which Oliver gladly accepts.

Dodge and a few of his cohorts live in a ramshackle abandoned building with their "supervisor" Fagin watching there every move. Fagin reports to Bill (whom we never see); who runs his stable of boys & girls with an iron fist.

Dodge also has quite a nasty heroin addiction, which he relies on to get the job done every night. Dodge decides to train Oliver in his wicked ways, which the young Oliver seems more than up to the task of learning.

So is the story of Jacob Tierney's adaptation of the classic Dickens novel "Oliver Twist". This is NOT the Oliver that I remember growing up; but it is still a decent movie nonetheless.

The movie chronicles the lives of these young men & women in a gritty and depressing fashion. The movie centers around Dodge, who is played quite skillfully by Nick Stahl. Oliver (Joshua Close) just happens to be the catalyst that could bring the whole business crashing down.....

Will he survive the clutches of Dodge, Fagin, and Bill? Well, you'd have to watch to find out for yourself.

Dodge himself is quite an interesting character, and we get to find out about his family background and what has led him up to this point. It's quite a downer of a story, but an intriguing one as well.

If you like movies that depict stories of sexual abuse and addiction, then "Twist" should be right up your alley. However, there are scenes in "Twist" (one in particular that is SO disturbing and so pervasive that it's barely watch able) that really make the movie hard to stomach.

The film is finely acted, written, and directed. "Twist" balances a fine line between reality and sickness in our culture. Worth seeing once; but this reviewer would have trouble watching Twist again due to some of it's content (especially the scene mentioned above). Some things, I do not feel need to be depicted just quite yet on film; no matter how brutally honest their intent may be.

Recommended, but only for those audiences who like their movies harsh and unforgiving. By the time Twist has concluded, this reviewer doubts that you'll be asking "Please sir, may I have some more"?

Okay let me begin by stating that if you are looking for a film that remakes Dicken's classic, don't hold your breath with Twist. Here the urchins are hustlers, not pick pockets. Aside from the names (our lead characters are Oliver and Dodge, with their pimp being Fagan) the similarities are limited. Although, Twist is faithful to the social reformist urgency which is key in the writings of Charles Dickens.

Having said that, I really thought this was a good film. It is not uplifting at all, there is little or no redemption, but the characters are very real, the acting is very good and you will become emotionally involved. You will care about these characters by the end, they have depth. I won't spoil the film for you but there are three scenes that will completely break your heart, two involving Oliver and one involving Dodge.

The film is not graphic in anything other than subject matter. The scenes on the cold winter streets of Toronto made me shiver (anyone in Northern Cities will understand). The film is just the right length. I would recommend that you at least rent this film. The DVD has a commentary with the Director and Nick Stahl that is nice, so you may want to own it also.

This unusual adaptation of Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist is a gritty, yet touching story, not unlike the original. It takes place in a small Canadian town and revolves around a gruop of young male prostitutes. The characters though not entirely three-dimensional, do well in creating a sense of danger and desperation. Nick Stahl is as usual very convincing and his portrayal of Dodger is rather moving. It's a slow paced thriller with nice little plot twists ;-)

The intensely dark and compelling "Twist" (2003) is loosely based on Dickens' "Oliver Twist,", with the boy pickpockets replaced by a band of junkie hustlers working out of the seedy section of Toronto. The story centers more on Dodge (Nick "Bully" Stahl in a standout intense performance), who befriends a new runaway, pretty blonde Oliver (Joshua Close). Dodge takes him under his wing and indoctrinates him into the group, which is run by an unseen pimp (Bill) and managed by the brutal enforcer Fagin (Gary Farmer). The hangout for the boys is the local "Three Cripples Diner", with the waitress duties shared by two young women (including Bill's wife Nancy, played wonderfully by Michèle-Barbara Pelletier) who are surrogate mothers/big sisters to the boys. The quick loss of Oliver's innocence is seen, as we also learn about Dodge's background (through a visit from his brother) and why he ran away to become a part of this situation.

Since the boys are male prostitutes, there is simulated sexual situations and content, but there is no nudity or explicit scenes to detract from the seriousness of the film. Director Jacob Tierney
skillfully weaves a believeable and compelling, through gutwrenching, original story based on the Dickens classic. All of the actors named above, especially Stahl, deliver marvelous, powerful performances that provide depth to their characters. The film seems much shorter than its 97 minutes, and does not have a happy ending. Much recommended to those who can appreciate the art involved, and who won't get mired down in the profession of the characters or a comparison to the original source.

Official site:
http://www.christalfilms.com/officialsites/twist/

Director, Jacob Tierney has managed, in the movie Twist, to faithfully evoke the bleak, wintry landscape of Charles Dickens' atmospheric 19th century novel. He has also re-imagined whom Fagin, Oliver, Dodge and the rest of the renegade gang of pickpockets might be if they had lived in the 21st century. It's a clever idea and you have to admire the director's vision, even when the outcome isn't that good.

The trouble with Twist is that it's perhaps too overly faithful to Dickens' story. Transferring the premise to the snowy industrial heart of Toronto is no doubt compelling, but somewhere in the transference, the original vibrancy of the story has been lost in the process. Consequently, we have a movie that trundles and labors along, is unevenly acted, and has lots of long drawn out dead spots where nothing particularly significant happens. In the end, Twist comes across as rather strained and stretched, and feels far longer than its running time of ninety-seven minutes.

In this 21st century version, Oliver, (Joshua Close), Dodge (Nick Stahl) and the rest of the gang have been transformed into male hustlers whom Fagan (Gary Farmer) commands to walk the seedy back alleyways of Toronto picking up guys whenever they can. Fagin gets his orders from the big boss named Bill, who is never seen (it's a big misstep of the film), but whose presence is felt by the fear he engenders.

The boys are fed coffee and heroin by Nancy (Michele-Barbara Pelletier), the local coffee shop waitress and she's under strict instructions from Fagan, and from her husband Bill, to "keep the boys working," especially Dodge who has a tendency to slack off. Dodge also lures homeless boys into the game in order to support his heroin habit, and on one cold, wet evening he meets the unassuming runaway, Oliver and offers him a place to stay.

Fagan soon recruits Oliver into the prostitution ring. But Oliver's an innocent and so achingly needy that he propositions Dodge several times. Dodge, however, is so caught up in the life of drugs, that all he wants to do is wander through the city's red light district; a true lost and embittered soul. When Oliver is given a chance of a new life with a wealthy senator, he decides to jump at the chance.

Tierney has effectively moved the emphasis of the story away from Oliver, to Dodge and the result is that Dodge is given a rather muddied back-story. Apparently, Dodge has an older brother who eventually arrives on the scene, ostensibly to help his younger brother. But when Dodge demands payment for an evening of talk, the sibling reunion quickly turns ugly and Dodge is left shocked and bereft. As his world spirals out of control, he takes the law into his own hands, while the other characters either suicide or turn to heroin to cope with the grim proceedings.

Stahl as Dodge gives by far the strongest and most freaked-out performance. He really gets to the essence of the character, making us feel his sense of frustration, loss and grief. He even makes us "live" the freezing temperatures by the way he sticks his hands further into his pockets, constantly tugging at his scarf, and, head down, lumbering along the cold, dark streets. It's hard, however, to follow the rush to Oliver, who spends much of the movie looking down at his feet, sulking around with a needy petulance, looking bored with the events as they unfold.

It's all very bleak, depressing, and even unsettling, but this isn't why the film's not that good. The problem is that the movie is far too stagy and pretentious, with scenes that are too stretched out, and camera shots that linger far too long on certain episodes. There's obviously a good story here, and we are given a startlingly realistic insight into how these boys live and survive. But under Tierney's plodding direction, the movie is often downright tedious; it's just so apparent that all we are witnessing is a very young man's passion and fervor for unrelieved and unmitigated misery. Mike Leonard July 05.

This a beautifully written, directed, photographed and acted little movie. Joshua Close (whom I'd never heard of) is especially moving and believable as the sweetly naive and vulnerable quasi-title character Oliver, and Nick Stahl is brilliant as always playing a deeply troubled but fascinating victim of his past and his own bad choices. All the secondary roles are very well played too, and through their performances the never-seen-or-heard Bill indirectly but effectively casts his ominous pall over everything.

Twist is more than just another hustler movie, much richer than Johns, for example. It's a morality tale that's also consistently entertaining, never sentimental, preachy, or cheap. I've read reviews that criticize writer-director Jacob Tierney for taking such liberties with the Dickens novel, but the fact that this little movie aims so high and succeeds is one of its greatest strengths. It successfully achieves the same rare, transcendent balance of depravity and tenderness that Dickens does so well. Like reading Dickens, watching Twist is a dark and challenging but richly rewarding experience.

The DVD is fine, but the "director's commentary" is more like eavesdropping on a casual and sometimes barely audible private conversation between him and Stahl. They're old friends, and they spend a good deal of the time taking friendly jabs at each other as old friends do, but it's not particularly interesting to an outsider. It added almost nothing to my appreciation for and understanding of the movie. But the movie itself is a gem.

I found Twist to be an extremely good movie and one that I would recommend to people on certain grounds (you have to be able to accept what the movie centers on, male prostitution.) Dodge,a runaway who lives with fellow hustlers under their pimp Fargin, takes in Oliver, who has also run away, and shows him the a world of hustling and drugs. Dodge was sexually abused by his father, as we find out in a heartbreaking visit from his brother, one that was so sad it stuck with me for days. Nancy, who works at a diner that the boys spend time at, is like an older sister to most of the boys, and urges Oliver to not get involved in this life, saying that "I know Dodge has been good to you, but if he could find a way out of this life he would go."
There is no graphic sex or nudity, but we are shown lots of drug use (Dodge is addicted to heroin) and violence. The ending is very unsettling, and leaves a message in it's wake. Nick Stahl is amazing and pulls us into his role and makes us stay, and the rest of the cast is superb. The setting and the scenes all mirrored the cold city nights and made me shiver even though it was warm in my house. All aspects of the film seemed to hit the right notes, and I recommend this movie to whoever seems interested.

I did not expect a great film when I sat down to watch this, but I quickly saw that I was wrong. Just watch it and you too will be surprised.

I must say that this film was more than i expected i love the characters and the chemistry between them even though it did not end the way i would have liked it to, it was a very gripping story that didnt need to rely on sexually explicit content in order to provide a great story and it definitely was a beautifully casted movie. my only complaint about the movie is that it was not long enough for me.