LAWS OF GRAVITY (Directed by Nick Gomez. Stars Peter Greene, Edie Falco, Adam Trese)

It is not the law of gravity Nick Gomez has to worry about, it is the law of plagiarism. He shot his directorial debut on a shoestring, but the shoes are clearly walking a well-trodden path. Laws of Gravity is a nervy, semi-improvised, grittily authentic take on life amongst the macho-swaggering hustlers of the mean streets of Brooklyn, the same mean streets Martin Scorsese once explored.

Gomez even sets up a virtually identical dynamic, with the responsible Jimmy (Peter Greene) saddled with the itchily nihilistic Jon (Adam Trese), much as Harvey Keitel once accepted De Niro’s Johnny Boy as his penance. Somehow Jimmy’s best intentions only serve to hurry tragedy along. Although with a good half hour of the film taken up by expletives, they could have hurried it along a bit quicker.

Despite his charms, Adam Trese is no De Niro, and, as he betrays through sheer derivativeness, Gomez is no Scorsese. Yet the sheer energy of the film, the low key authenticity of the performances, and, especially, the fluid inventiveness of documentary cameraman Jean de Segonzac invest the enterprise with a value far beyond the mere $38,000 spent bringing it to the screen.