Product Details

• Actors: Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Russell Hornsby, Rukiya Bernard
• Directors: Stuart Gordon
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
• DVD Release Date: October 14, 2008
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001CIOCO4
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,796 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "Stuck" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Stuck, a cunning and energetic thriller, takes its premise from the real-life incident of a woman who hit a homeless man, then drove home and parked the car in the garage--with the man wedged halfway through her windshield. The genius of Stuck is that it not only squeezes every possible drop of gruesomeness out of this event, it also portrays everyone involved as a fully-rounded human being. Brandi (Mena Suvari, American Beauty), the driver, is a nurse at a retirement home who genuinely cares about her patients and is struggling for a promotion; for Tom (Stephen Rea, The Crying Game), being hit by a car is only the latest in a long line of misfortunes and indignities. But this is no earnest tragedy--instead, when the movie seems about to become a grim psychological portrait of denial and trauma, it shifts into high gear as a brutally funny black comedy. Director Stuart Gordon, best know for the over-the-top horror of Re-Animator, keeps most of Stuck slyly underplayed, to superb effect. The simple but effectively constructed script zips along, zigging and zagging within a very tightly framed situation. Suvari, Rea, and the rest of the cast (including excellent newcomers Russell Hornsby and Rukiya Bernard) commit to every emotional twist, turning from suspense to satire with adroit skill. This movie was made on a modest budget but has more thrills, laughs, and genuine tingles up and down the spine than all the special effects money can buy. A gem of tight, effective filmmaking. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Mena Suvari (American Beauty) unforgettably stars as Brandi, a hard-partying, overworked nursing assistant in this delicious, darkly humorous psychological thriller from director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond). Brandi accidentally steers her car into a homeless man, movingly played by Stephen Rea (The Crying Game), sending him flying through the windshield. Not wanting to jeopardize a possible job promotion, she chooses not to get him medical help, leaving him clinging to life in her garage. But soon her psyche begins to unravel as captor and captive are pitted against each other in a bloody...even outrageous battle for survival. Director Stuart Gordon delivers what Variety called "ingeniously nasty and often shockingly funny" entertainment.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Do not go gentle into that good night, May 8, 2009

By	Jason (Backwater, Alabama) - See all my reviews

If you'd like to be disgusted, search for the name Chante Mallard. What you'll find is the story of a drug/alcohol intoxicated woman, who hit a man named Gregory Biggs with her car while she was driving home. After the collision she completed her trip, parked in the garage, and proceeded to callously let Biggs bleed-out (officials believe he would have lived if given medical help) while she had sex with her boyfriend and no doubt did whatever else her morally decayed black heart desired.

Since no audience would appreciate simply seeing a man slowly bleed to death while stuck in a car windshield, the makers of this movie took some liberties with the truth. I'm ecstatic they did.

Thomas Bardo (Stephen Rea) is down on his luck. Evicted, jobless, possession-less, he doesn't even have a place to sleep. When police wake him from slumber on a park bench, he's forced to make his way toward a mission.

Meanwhile, Brandi Boski (Mena Suvari - miscast because Mallard is an obese black woman) is a soulless, selfish drug-abuser who is getting trashed and partying the night way. (Suvari really manages to pick out character roles that make me despise her) Many other reviewers may view her as "balanced", but since she's a drug-using drunk driver, and is a white girl with corn-rows - which never looks good - I'm going to go ahead and say that she's incredibly unbalanced and vile.

As if it were a surprise, she's blitzed out of her mind (thanks to X and alcohol), effing with her cell phone, swerving all over, and she blasts Bardo, mangling his legs and lodging him in the windshield. Drunk or not, people with a shred of humanity stop there and help the man. But not this intellectually, morally, and spiritually defective sociopath. Instead, she goes home and has the least appealing non-rape full-frontal nudity, sex scene in cinema history.

Ahh...the resolution. In real life, as I said before, it's boring. This movie, however, provides the resolution that Ted Kennedy sees in his nightmares. Brilliant. I won't ruin it, but the tight directing and believable acting accentuates Bardo's rage against the dying of the light.

Overall, I recommend this for people with mild tempers and no heart conditions.

COMMENTARY
Knowing the case beforehand, I watched the majority with a snarled lip. Such social apathy really brings out my misanthropy. This single instance serves as a harsh critical analysis representative of the insidious cultural decay that has wreaked havoc on the community, family, and morals of our society. It's an overtly sexual, me-first MTV-generation where every child is a precious little snowflake, nobody has respect for family, elders, or authorities, and selfishness all but negates personal accountability. People like Mallard are deserving of a special place in hell, and the fact that there is no doubt at least one person with sympathy for her only reflects society's decay. It's sad that the movie ending isn't the real ending, and that vile scum like Mallard are allowed to live, let alone be given the possibility of parole. With any luck (crossing my fingers), karma will make the rest of her life a horror movie.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stuck in the "It's All About Me" Mindset., June 13, 2008

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I was stuck on this B movie from its opening scenes. Inspired by a true story (rather than a sick joke), Stuck is a 2008 black comedy about a Providence nurse, Brandi (Mena Suvari of American Beauty) who, high on cocktails and Ecstasy and while talking on her cellphone, hits a newly homeless guy, Tom (Stephen Rea of The Crying Game), who then remains stuck in the broken windshield of the Brandi's car for days. While Tom attempts to survive, Nurse Brandi avoids calling the police and refuses to render medical assistance. Instead, she pops more Ecstasy, has sex with her boyfriend, and wonders how the accident might affect her promotion at the retirement home where she works. This is not good, she figures. So instead of saving Tom, she pleads, "Whay are you doing this to me," and then whacks him with a board whenever he regains consciousness, hoping that he'll just die already so she can dispose of his body. Re-Animator Stuart Gordon's satirical film is ultimately about an American culture that has become so self-absorbed that it is easier to refuse assistance to a dying person than to inconvenience oneself. Brandi's refusal to believe the accident was her fault, instead blaming the homeless guy for the sticky situation, works as priceless comedy. Stuck is rich in sex, drugs, horror, and graphic grindhouse gore.

G. Merritt

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stranger than Fiction!, November 15, 2008

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

STUCK is one of those films that creeps up on you, teases you into thinking a comedy is in the making, then slowly reveals itself as what seems to be an exposé of our current manner of getting through life, of competing in the workplace, and of self absorption to the point of endangering those around us. The fact that the film is based on a true story as adapted by director Stuart Gordon and transformed into a bitingly satirical screenplay by John Strysik increases the impact of this well-crafted little low budget film. Watch it once for the gritty content of the story, then watch it again to appreciate all of the very dark (and very pointed!) humor in what at first appears to be a grisly tale.

Brandi Boski (Mena Suvari) works as a Nurse's Aid in a nursing home of senile elderly patients, giving some of the finest care for those entrusted to her talents. Brandi's compassionate work is noted by the supervisor Peterson (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) who manages to trick Brandi into an even heavier work schedule by suggesting a raise in position. Excited about her possible promotion Brandi and her working partner Tanya (Rukiya Bernard) celebrate that evening with Brandi's boyfriend/drug supplier Rashid (Russell Hornsby) who gives Brandi a pill of Ecstasy and the mixture of the drug with the alcohol creates a mess of Brandi's mind.

The parallel story involves one jobless Thomas Bardo (Stephen Rea) who lives in a tenement, is evicted because of past due rent, and becomes a street person, treated with cold (but satirical) mechanical responses at the Department of Unemployment. Left to sleep in the park he is befriended by another homeless person, given a shopping cart, and makes his way toward a midnight mission.

Brandi cum altered thought processes drives home, hits Thomas who comes sailing through her windshield badly injured, and out of fear and distress Brandi merely takes the 'stuck' Thomas home to park him in her garage, knowing that her boyfriend Rashid will help her. Thomas is conscious, unable to climb out of the glass of the crushed windshield and begs for help. How the stranded and injured Thomas is treated by the desperate but self-centered Brandi, by the frightened but macho Rashid, and by neighbors who fear intervention because of reporting an incident that would encourage police intervention and threaten their deportation as illegal immigrants results in an ending that shows how 'justice' can prevail!

The cast is first rate - especially Rea, Suvari, Hornsby and Bernard. The direction is tight and maintains credible characters in incredible situations and holds the audience attention every moment. This is a fine example of how a low budget film, in the hands of pros, can be more successful that the big budget, less thoughtful movies that crowd our marquis. Grady Harp, November 08