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| Throwing Down Synopsis |
Throwing Down has to rate as the most weirdly entertaining film of this year's Festival; its darkly comic story of two small-time scam artists who get much more than they bargained for when they seize on the chance to make a huge, unexpected score combines pitch-black humor, an eccentrically convoluted plot, a bizarre cast of characters and razor-sharp dialogue that rings too true to be made up.
The story concerns two young con artists, A. J. and Pete, who always seem one step ahead of looming disaster. A.J.'s philosophy involves seizing on the "split second window of opportunity" that life occasionally offers, though this invariable involves something illegal. After ripping off a car full of young Virginians who have come to New York City to score some drugs, A. J. is off to put the finishing touches on a scam he's been working on for weeks. Pete, meanwhile, is supposed to be watching A. J.'s back, but instead stumbles upon the chance to hijack a large shipment of drugs being sent by a mob functionary through the mail to a waiting customer. This "golden opportunity" will end up involving both young men in a surrealistic nightmare beyond their wildest imaginings.
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Lawrence O'Neil's Throwing Down is a smart, fast-paced crime story set in New York City. As such, it may sound like the tried and true, but the way O'Neil writes, shoots, and edits pushes the film out of the realm of the familiar into the excitingly unfamiliar.
The story revolves around two inept hoods, Pete (Jeffrey Donovan) and A.J. (Kevin Pinassi), who pull small-time scams and get into trouble when they try to move into bigger money by hijacking a drug shipment. The film mixes comedy and suspense, but the real pleasure may be in O'Neil's deft use of dialogue.
O'Neil, who studied film at SUNY Purchase with colleagues like Tim McCann, Nick Gomez, and Hal Hartley, wrote the script over nine months while working a day job as a PA on commercials. When he finished, he took the script to Dave Schaye, who in turn took it to Ted Jessup, a TV producer who was anxious to produce a feature and found both the dramatic story and the low budget appealing. "It was an exciting, bare bones script," says Jessup, who signed on as executive producer, and working with Schaye, who signed as producer, quickly raised the money to start production.
Casting started in the summer of 1994 and took three months until O'Neil had lined up a group of talent new to feature film production. They rehearsed a little, and then launched into production, but not before the major financial commitment for the film dropped out the day before shooting commenced. "It's axiomatic," says O'Neil. "You can never think you have the money until you've cashed the check." O'Neil says that there were tense moments and some hair-pulling, but he went forward anyway, and Jessup scrambled to find alternative sources for financing while O'Neil and Schaye let the cast and crew believe that everything was just fine.
The first part of the shoot took place in New York City and was very grueling because there were many different locations requiring two or three set-ups each day. "Larry and Dave worked quickly," says Jessup, "and shot with an amazing ratio, which saved us a lot of money." O'Neil wanted the film to have a particular visual style. "I wanted a lot of handheld camera," he says, "but not the herky-jerky camerawork. It's a controlled story so I wanted a sense of control even though it is handheld." O'Neil relied on a lot of practicals and source lighting so he'd have room to maneuver.
The second location was in upstate New York where O'Neil had found a house slated for demolition. They tented the house with black plastic so they could shoot around the clock, and while working on a single location was easier than shooting all over New York City, it was October, and very, very cold. Both Jessup and O'Neil describe the shoot as grueling. "Independent films on low budgets are the result of coordination, but also of getting a lot of people's cooperation," says Jessup. "You're imposing a great deal of hardship on people, squeezing everything you possibly can out of them, and at the same time feeding them 300 calories a day and making them sleep outside in sleeping bags."
O'Neil worked closely with editor Marisa Benedetto on editing the film, and he uses Benedetto's commitment to the film as an example of the amazing contributions of his cast and crew. "She was a fearless Viking," he says. "She left a high-paying job at an editing house to do this." The pair worked day and night, turning out a rough cut two months after shooting ended.
Throwing Down premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival where it won the Goldfish Star, which is the festival's top jury prize, as well as critical acclaim from critics who likened O'Neil's debut to those of the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino.
film reviewed by sundancechannel.com
The second of two Friday night screenings at Raleigh Studios is writer/director Lawrence O'Neil's darkly comic THROWING DOWN. In the world of independent cinema, the film falls into what's become something of a genre unto itself: two feckless would-be hucksters stumble onto something they shouldn't the road. This kind of thing can only end in tears, and O'Neil's film careens toward its tragic denouement with an unpredictable inevitability, even while balancing a consistently arch tone and some fairly hilarious back-and-forth between his two star-crossed con men. O'Neil sites Ren & Stimpy as an influence, and though THROWING DOWN isn't what you'd call cartoonish, the nasty little Chihuahua and his big, loving, slow-witted pal do make a convincing model for the love/hate verge-of-violence patter of A. J. RAILEY and his young protégé-in-crime PETE GULLEY.
The film has a real stylistic assurance for a first feature, from the writing to the direction to the performances, and it's all the more remarkable given that O'Neil's two leads are also in their feature film debuts. Both the actors bring a lot into the roles, but Donovan in particular lends a convincing and poignant humanity to the part of PETE GULLEY. Without coming right out and saying "hey, this is the next (A-list actor of your choice)," read it here first that Jeffrey Donovan ought to be in pictures. The actor explains that he's "classically trained," something that sounds a little funny at an independent film festival among first-timers of every strip who seem to cast friends, neighbors, family members and guys off the street in their films. Maybe it's all that Ibsen and Chekhov; Donovan's PETE GULLEY is a real guy -- in over his head, bewildered by every cruel trick of fate.
Lawrence O'Neil explains that he worked as a PA on television commercials while writing the script for THROWING DOWN. The experience was apparently angry-making, but instead of showing up at Silver Cup Studios with a semi-automatic, he managed to channel his rage into the screenplay. A. J. RAILEY spends two solid hours spewing vitriol, but O'Neil and actor Kevin Pinassi somehow make this the film's comic center. Our audience actually applauded one of the blackest moments of xenophobic invective. And L.A. seems so peaceful; I thought it was just New Yorkers felt "outrageous stupidity" was a laugh line.
Despite the fact that THROWING DOWN took top prize at this year's Hampton's Film Festival, the picture still has no distributor. What's up with that? This is an engaging, solidly-crafted film, and there's no doubt that Lawrence O'Neil is a filmmaker who will only improve with his next effort.
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