Deuces Wild: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

While it's doubtful that Scott Kalvert intended to create an instant camp classic with his hilarious new film, "Deuces Wild," that's nevertheless what he pulled off--and what a hoot.

Set on a Hollywood back lot--excuse me, set in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the summer of 1958--the film is "West Side Story" without the songs, "The Lords of Flatbush" without the Fonz, "The Wanderers" without a map, a compass, or its own way.

It's a movie about two rival gangs whose swagger and strut are so incredibly exaggerated, what's amazing about the film isn't how bad it is, but that anyone here got through it without breaking a hip.

From start to bloody finish, "Deuces Wild" is an eye-popping exercise in excess and cliches, a melodramatic cheeseball festooned in black leather, white T-shirts and jeans that hits the screen with such misguided aplomb, it can't help but eventually burst apart like a thoroughly whacked piñata.

In the film, the good-guy Deuces and the bad-guy Vipers come to throws when the Vipers decide they want to start selling drugs in the Deuces' neighborhood. That's a big no-no for the Deuces, who lost a member of their gang--a scrappy kid named Alley Boy--to a drug-related death three years before.

Alley Boy's brother, Leon (Stephen Dorf), now king of the Deuces, is determined to avenge his brother's death by making certain that the Vipers don't put a crack pipe and a bong in every home.

The problem for Leon and his crew of brass knuckleheads? The Vipers, as led by Jimmy Pockets (Balthazar Getty) and the freshly paroled Marco (Norman Reedus), are being bankrolled by the local mob boss, Fritzy (Matt Dillon), who is very comfortable with the idea that the neighborhood kiddies should be addicted to smack.

Toss into this mix a rape, some gang violence shot in slow motion, and a love affair between Leon's brother Bobby (Brad Renfro) and a tough-as-tanks babe named Annie (Fairuza Balk)--who just happens to be a sister to one of the Vipers--and the tension, you can imagine, becomes enough to make these Deuces wild.

At my screening, there were moments when I was convinced I was seeing the film with a group of asthmatics-there were those who couldn't stop gasping at the absurdity. Apparently, even MGM knows it's dealing with a dog. "Deuces Wild" has been sitting on their shelves for two years. The fact that they waited to release it opposite "Spider-Man" says it all for how the studio itself views the movie.

Grade: D-



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