Hell is other people. Especially when those other people are speed-freaks out to impress you with their tales of drug-addled derring-do. Spun often feels like being trapped in a cage with a whole bunch of such tax-dodgers and a never-ending supply of methamphetamine which they refuse to share, thus rendering their company even less desirable.
The ‘plot’ or rather series of misadventures, unfolds loosely around Jason Schwartzman’s eleven day sleepless speed binge with like-minded individuals. There’s two-bit dealer John Leguizamo and his visibly decaying, constipated girlfriend Mena Suvari. Debbie Harry pops up as a tough, biker-bitch dyke. Mickey Rourke inevitably plays the supplier to the whole gang and to his eternal credit, he actually manages to look even more haggard than usual. It helps of course, that he’s sporting a wasted white-trash stripper girlfriend (Brittany Murphy) on his arm.
But the big news for movie fans, is that Spun heralds the return of Patrick Fugit, the teenager last seen occupying the void at the centre of Almost Famous. Here he is adorned by several magnificently pus-filled zits, because that’s the kind of flick this is, baby. Everything is as gross-out, up-close and as hardcore as humanly possible. You half expect an extreme-sports voice-over to kick in on the soundtrack as we breeze through scenes with girls squatting on toilets, guys masturbating into socks, and more porn than you can shake a stick at, so to speak.
Unfortunately, things get very tedious, and director Jonas Akerlund’s constant desire to shock ( he is after all, the director behind the seminal video for ‘Smack My Bitch Up’) leads to some dreadfully misjudged attempts at comedy – the running gag involving the ‘accidental’ kidnapping of a stripper would be a case in point.
In its defence, Spun is undeniably stylish and rather brilliant at capturing the disjointed fidgety paranoia attendant to the leisure activity portrayed. But there’s only so many shots of cartoon vaginas and sweaty armpits that one can take in one sitting. Queasy.