Whether they were inspired by the similarly titled Kanye West song or not, the title of this warm but silly caper comedy quite aptly fits the film’s rather obvious but chucklesome plot. Directed by Ian Edelman and starring Luis Guzman and Edgar Garcia as the titular Puerto Ricans, Luis and Eddie, the film starts with the pair as brothers-in-law and police partners working in the rather un-sexy field of handbag knockoffs. After a particularly clever undercover operation where they take down a Louis Vuitton fake manufacturer, they are handpicked by a popular French handbag designer, Colette (Alice Taglioni), and her business partner, to track down which of their colleagues has stolen one of Colette’s bags and may be intending to sell it to the knockoff market.

As per usual in these sorts of buddy comedies, one of the men is married, Eddie, and one is determinedly single, Luis. Eddie is married to Luis’s sister Gloria (Rosie Perez, and ridiculously underused) and can’t seem to get things right as he forgets their anniversary and then fails to deliver any sort of celebration to make up for it. Luis is (inexplicably) dating Vanessa (Rosario Dawson) who is getting antsy that he won’t pop the question and gives him an ultimatum when he lets slip that he may never want to marry.

When the offer to track down the stealer of the handbag in Paris comes along, not to mention a hefty reward offer, they decide taking the job may be their opportunity to make things right with their chicas. The usual sort of aloofness ensues, as two hard-nosed NYPD Puerto Ricans could never be expected to know how to behave in a chic a place as Paris *sigh*. Some deserved laughs arrive in the form of Eddie’s willingness to learn and experience the Parisian life. Luis is more determined to track down the thief, get his money, and go. Luis, usually the ladies man (aren’t all middle-aged Puerto Rican men?) is confused to find Eddie and his mild Dad-like empathetic married-man qualities seem to win over the Parisian ladies more than Luis’s attempts.

The two interview a few women close to Colette, dressing up in silly costumes and making up ridiculous cover stories in order to win trust. At one point they have a lead, and then it becomes obvious they don’t. They butt heads with the Paris police. They generally bumble about. It’s all rather predictable. Strangely the writers, Ian Edelman and Neel Shah, decided that the wrench in Luis and Eddie’s relationship would be around Luis’s misconception that Eddie and Colette are spending a little too much time together. As if anything in Eddie’s already established personality makes him appear like an adulterer?

The end result is a weak plot and silly concept utilizing two genuinely talented hispanic actors who just can’t quite make up for it all. The entire thing reeks of formulation and rather generic comedy. While Luis Guzman should probably have been given a headlining platform long ago, and as much as we love Guzman and Garcia in Edelman’s How to Make it In America, the content here is far too weak for the talent involved. Garcia, a relatively inexperienced actor, is surprisingly lovable here if somewhat flat in his delivery.

Considering the stated cultural identity of the film, it really doesn’t play off of this much at all. Only with the usual hispanic tropes. The fact that both Rosario Dawson and Rosie Perez were cast and then given all of maybe 15 minutes combined screen time, is just puzzling. It may just be Edelman hasn’t quite grasped the long-form of feature films, as the entire premise of Puerto Ricans in Paris would make for a great short sketch on television, but over the course of 80 minutes (short even for a comedy feature) the film is agreeable but not all that winsome.

Vanessa Hudgens gets her hands dirty in Ronald Krauss’ pro-life message movie Gimme Shelter. She gains 15 pounds, tries on an accent, and cuts her hair short. The young actress’ commitment to the role of 16-year-old Apple Bailey–a homeless, damaged, pregnant teen who finds sanctuary at a warm New Jersey shelter–didn’t end with her outward appearance, either: she spent three weeks living with the girls at the real-life shelter the film is based on. All the work paid off, as she does a solid job of disappearing into the role, with her glitzy red-carpet looks and bubbly public persona adequately melted away.

Apple is an angry, disheveled teen with a nasty attitude that screams “keep your damn distance”. After fleeing from her yellow-toothed, violently abusive, meth-addict mother June (Rosario Dawson, embarrassingly over-the-top), she breaks into the gated suburban property of her estranged, loaded father Tom (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Joanna (Stephanie Szostak), carrying a letter he wrote her when he was born. During her stay Apple discovers she’s pregnant, and Tom and Joanna (who’s more than miffed that Apple’s dirtying up her McMansion) suggest she get an abortion.

The “A” word is never muttered, but this is the point in the film where the the thinly veiled Catholic messages really begin to pile on. The film portrays the suggestion of an abortion as absolutely evil, which would be fine, if only Krauss (who wrote and directed) had earned it. Certainly a film should stand its ground with conviction if it wants to make a statement, but Krauss’ script is so dismissive of the pro-choice perspective that he chooses to portray it as simply evil and wrong. The issue deserves a more intelligent approach than that.

Apple runs away again, and after stealing and crashing a car, she ends up in the hospital where she meets a kind-hearted clergyman named Frank (James Earl Jones, predictably decent) who sets her up to live in a home for unwed pregnant teens run by Kathy DiFiore, played by Ann Dowd. In reality, DiFiore has been running her shelters and taking in girls just like Apple for over 30 years. Though there isn’t a real Apple Bailey, the character is based on the combined stories from actual girls who stay at DiFiore’s shelter, some of whom appear in the film.

The film gets super syrupy from here, attempting to get across that Apple’s connecting with the other girls on a meaningful level while being transformed into a respectable, responsible young lady by the kind-yet-stern DiFiore (played well by Dowd). The transition from messy street kid to dress-wearing nice girl doesn’t feel earned in the slightest, due to Krauss’ priority abruptly shifting to conveying how much of a godsend DiFiore and her shelter are. There’s a melodramatic scene in which DiFiore intercepts June when she attempts to snatch Apple from the home against her will. (Dawson spits and growls like a rabid pit bull and is just awful.) The scene should be about Apple, but it’s clearly designed to showcase Difiore’s goodness. Apple’s story gets lost in all the adulation.

Gimme Shelter was clearly made with good intentions, and if nothing else, Krauss and Hudgens deliver their message with conviction. Problem is, the vessel they’ve constructed to deliver said message is chock-full of holes.

Kathy DiFiore has sheltered pregnant teens in her New Jersey home for decades, and her work has garnered her worldwide praise, including from Mother Theresa. Inspired by her story, Gimme Shelter stars Vanessa Hudgens as Apple Bailey, a fictional character who’s an amalgamation of the real-life girls DiFiore shelters. In the film, we watch Apple struggle to find her way when her abusive mother (Rosario Dawson) and absentee father (Brendan Fraser) fail to provide the support she needs. Eventually, she finds Kathy (played by Ann Dowd) and her shelter, the home she never thought she’d find.

DiFiore has resisted talking to any press about her story and the stories of the girls she shelters, but that all changed when she met director Ronald Krauss, who convinced her to let him make the film and share her story with the world by getting involved and helping her at the shelter for over a year.

DiFiore and Krauss talked to us about how they linked up to make the project, how a hug started it all, Kathy’s relationship with Ann Dowd, Hudgens’ performance, and more.

Gimme Shelter releases nationwide this Friday, January 24th.

Kathy, you haven’t been known to talk to any press about your story…
Kathy: None at all. Zero.

Zero. You didn’t want to do it. So, what brought you to Ronald? What made him different?
Kathy: It’s what brought him to me. I was in hiding! (laughs) I’m a very spiritual person. I have a deep commitment to God. I’ve dedicated my life to God. I say, “God writes straight through crooked lines.” Through a variety of crooked lines, I got to meet Ronald. When I met him, he started to talk about his talents and possibilities, and I kind of just said, “Whatever.” I call it God’s divine timer: every five minutes, I kept hearing in my head, “Trust him. Trust him.” This had never happened to me before. I say this honestly. He kept talkint to me, and I opened up to him. I listened to him. Normally, I would just hang up the phone, make up some excuse, change the subject. Every single talk show has called me, and I’ve always said no. I wouldn’t even let the girls know, because I didn’t want them to get intrigued that they’d get on a show. As I got to know Ronald, I knew why God was saying to trust him. He’s really special, and the girls fell in love with him. They had told him things about their lives that I had never heard.

Ronald, you were at the shelter for a year, correct?
Ronald: I was there a year to write the script, and then I was going back and forth all the time, between casting, researching, and thinking about the idea of actually going back to the real shelter, shooting in the real shelter, and eventually putting the real girls and their babies in the movie, acting with Vanessa. I was trying to figure out whether it was a possibility to do this in an independent fashion, because, first of all, it was a small film. Second of all, it becomes this verité documentary film. My initial instinct was to shoot a documentary, but as I got into it, I realized that doing a feature film would reach so many more people. It was such an important story that had to be told. In these times, the film isn’t just about these shelters or teen pregnancy: this is a film that can unify us and help our society, which teaches us about selflessness, about helping people, about family, about compassion, about love. It’s about all these things, wrapped up in this little place. I said, “This has to happen,” and it did. Now, it’s more than a movie: it’s becoming sort of a movement. It’s touching on so many things that we need right now and that we need to explore with others.

That’s the thing about independent film: we need to be able to have these personal stories to share with others. Big films are great and entertaining, and those are important to in a way, but right now, this film connects with us and can help to show us that helping people is the way. This is the time–right now–to stop fighting on Black Friday to save ten bucks. Forget about yourself and what you need for five minutes and realize that we went through some tough times. What we really need is to lift each other up. This film heals us in a certain way. I’m not saying that has anything to do with me. It’s because of all of the people who worked on this film: the mothers, the babies, Kathy. This is a film about family.

You’ve said that this project started with a hug. Can you talk about that?
Ronald: I went to the shelter to do some research one night, and I met this girl standing out front. It was the middle of January, so it was 20 degrees out and she had no jacket on. I thought she was part of the shelter, but she didn’t. When Kathy showed up, she asked who the girl was, and I said I didn’t know. Kathy had a bed for her, and when I told the girl she could stay, she hugged me so hard she almost knocked me over. She crushed my heart, really. It made me think really deeply about what was happening at the shelter. Her name is Darlisha, and she actually acts in the film with Vanessa as one of the girls. Her story is half the story of Apple. Living in ten foster homes, the razor blade scene with the mother…that all happened to her. The movie’s also really a combination of all the girls, because they have so much in common when it comes to abuse and how society has made them outcasts. The shelter embraces them and picks them up off their feet, showing them that they’re as good as anybody else.

Kathy, what was it like working with Ann Dowd?
Kathy: It was like working with an angel. She’s so sweet. She has her own foster child who she cares for. She took such care with the character. She’d come up to me with Ron’s permission and ask me for guidance. I’d coach her as best I could. When she’d be filming, she’d come back and ask, “Was it okay? How did you feel about it?” I never changed anything she did. She was superb. We became like sisters. I miss her. I wish she was here today. When she plays my part, I cry, because she does such a good job that I feel sorry for myself at times. When Rosario comes to the shelter and whacks her daughter in the face, I cry every time. It’s such a complex scene, and Ann is the anchor of it.

Ronald: Ann is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood. She turns in performance after performance, she does theater…she’s so strong. Rosario is explosive in that scene, and in that scene, Ann defines the character of Kathy. She’s so strong. She shows the audience the way. We got so lucky with this cast.
Kathy: You sometimes have to break your heart to be in love, and that’s okay. That’s what that scene says. Kathy’s heart is broken, Apple’s heart is broken. But the love just blossoms.

Vanessa spent time with the girls at the shelter as well, correct?
Ronald: She lived at the shelter for three weeks. She cried the first night wondering what she was doing there, in a sense. She signed up for the project wondering if it was a good idea. That was the transformation, leaving Vanessa behind and becoming Apple. She cut her hair off, gained 15 pounds, lived in the shelter and came out of there being this girl. When we shot the movie, she was Apple. The entire time I was calling her Apple. I don’t think I ever saw Vanessa. I didn’t meet Vanessa until after the movie was over. She somehow became this character, who is so far from her, in terms of her personality as Vanessa Hudgens. She’s an incredible actress. If you challenge this girl, she’s going to deliver. She’s on the cusp of being something great, and this movie shows it. I helped her, but in the end, she had the abilities. I’ve worked with some really good actors, and she really made my job easy. She gave me the confidence that I had the right person for this role.

[To wrap up, Kathy provided more information about the great work she does and how people can help.]

Kathy: I have written a book called Gimme Love…Gimme Hope…Gimme Shelter. It has nine “Apples” in it, it has Mother Theresa in it, who has quite a relationship with me. I think people will enjoy reading it. We’re calling this not a film, but a movement. We’re hoping people will be inspired to help us open shelters around the country. My website is severalsources.net. I have a shelter kit, so if people want to open shelters in various places, I will help them. I’ve been doing this for ten years, including places as far away as China. Get involved! We need more shelters. There are 750,000 pregnant teens in this country a year. Some can stay home with their loved ones, but others are on the streets, and we need to help them.

Famed director Danny Boyle reverts back to more edgy form with Trance after recently holding the title artistic director of the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics. Boyle reunites with co-writer John Hodge for the first time since The Beach, however, Trance contains a mind trip plot that is more similar to a different Leonardo DiCaprio film, Inception. Both films deal with extracting information from the subconscious, but instead of blurring the line between reality and dreams like in Inception, Trance puts its characters (and audience) under the mental state of hypnosis. Unfortunately, the line the film without a doubt straddles is between greatness and atrocious as the final act weakens everything that comes before it.

Trance opens at a heart-pumping pace when a London art auction employee named Simon (James McAvoy) describes the procedure they must follow in the event of an attempt of robbery. This is an obvious foreshadow to what is about to happen in the next scene. Just as the auction for Francisco Goya’s “Wiches in the Air” reaches 30 million dollars, Franck (Vincent Cassel) and his gang bust in the room with smoke bombs and shotguns in hand.

Simon remains remarkably calm and follows the procedure he just got done explaining during the voiceover at the beginning. However, just as he is about to secure the painting down the emergency chute, Franck smacks him with the butt of his gun. The robbers manage to get away with the painting only to realize a short while later that the actual canvas is missing and they only have the frame of the painting. Suspecting that Simon had something to do with the mix up, Franck hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to dive into Simon’s subconscious in order to figure out where he hid the painting.

All of this happens within the first ten minutes and barely scratches the surface of all the different directions the film ends up going. What starts as a rather standard heist film quickly morphs into a psychological thriller. As more and more of the story unfolds it forces you into thinking that any one of the three main characters controls the power—which is what makes the experience so enjoyable. And for the majority of the runtime Trance is one hell of a ride.

Alongside his familiar cinematography collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle, Danny Boyle creates a patchwork of carefully shot and edited scenes that play mental head games of déjà vu for the viewer. The visuals are wonderfully paired with the narrative like a glass of red wine and a juicy steak. Trance employs some amazing techniques to visually achieve a subconscious view of Simon’s mind through the use of reflections, titled camera angles, vibrant colors, and precise focusing in conjunction with a pulsating score.

But things go awry in the final 20 minutes of the film. Even though there were some minor plausibility issues from the start, the ending is downright ridiculous and feels cheap. The first two acts put on a brilliant demonstration of storytelling and visual effects only for the whole production to completely stall out in the final act. Events transpire that I would expect from the Fast and Furious franchise that end up undermining the cleverness Trance began with. Even the music takes a huge departure from the moody atmospheric beats that fill most of the film to an almost upbeat and cheery sound by the end.

Although most of the flaws can be overlooked, Trance comes up shy of something truly great because it ultimately becomes too contrived to simply overlook. The ending wraps the plotlines up far too neatly for the audience by answering almost all of the mysterious that made it interesting. Unfortunately, the whole film is affected by the zany third act, but if you can manage to overlook that, Trance can be a nifty thriller that is entertaining enough to seek out.

In order to celebrate the Blu-ray/DVD release of Danny Boyle’s Trance on July 23rd, we are giving away a copy of Trance on Blu-ray to one of our readers. Trance follows a fine-art auctioneer named Simon (James McAvoy), who after a blow to his head during an attempted robbery of a valuable painting, awakens to find that the painting – and his memory – have disappeared. He enters a deadly love triangle with a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) when he is forced to undergo hypnosis by his partner in crime (Vincent Cassel).

How do you enter the giveaway?

Simply email me (dustin AT waytooindie.com) or tweet us at @WayTooIndie your favorite Vincent Cassel film See our post of Vincent Cassel’s Most Seductive Roles for some ideas.

Trance is available on DVD and Blu-ray on July 23rd!

TRANCE Blu- ray Special Features

• Theatrical Feature Blu-ray
• Deleted Scenes
• Trance Unraveled (Easter Egg)
• The Power of Suggestion-Making Trance
• Kick Off
• Danny’s Film Noir
• Hypnotherapy
• The Look
• The Final Rewrite
• Danny Boyle Retrospective
• Short Film: EUGENE by Spencer Susser
• Theatrical Trailer
• UV Copy

TRANCE DVD Exclusive Features

• Theatrical Feature
• Hypnotherapy
• The Look
• The Power of Suggestion-Making Trance
• The Final Rewrite
• Theatrical Trailer

Watch the trailer for Trance:

Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 127 Hours) has always had a knack to bring interesting stories to life in his films and his latest film Trance is no exception. It follows an art auctioneer who teams up with a gang of criminals to steal Francisco Goya’s Witches in the Air, a painting that is worth millions. During the heist an incident occurs where the auctioneer loses memory of where he hid the painting, forcing the gang to hire a hypnotherapist to try to pry at his subconscious.

Trance lands on Blu-ray and DVD on July 23rd

TRANCE Blu- ray Special Features

• Theatrical Feature Blu-ray
• Deleted Scenes
• Trance Unraveled (Easter Egg)
• The Power of Suggestion-Making Trance
• Kick Off
• Danny’s Film Noir
• Hypnotherapy
• The Look
• The Final Rewrite
• Danny Boyle Retrospective
• Short Film: EUGENE by Spencer Susser
• Theatrical Trailer
• UV Copy

TRANCE DVD Exclusive Features

• Theatrical Feature
• Hypnotherapy
• The Look
• The Power of Suggestion-Making Trance
• The Final Rewrite
• Theatrical Trailer