In neon lit town settled amogst snowy tundra the lives of four lost souls collide. As each tries to escape who and where they are, events take an unexpected and ultimately mysterious turn.
No Right Turn revolves for the most part around 4 main characters. At the heart of the tale is Johnny the cokehead, whose noses can't take anymore and his Wife struggling actress Nina. Both of them have dealing with the oddball train obsessed Teddy (who reminds me of a young Michael Palin), Johnny deals him coke and Nina has something else for him. The fourth character is the morbid Monella who saves Nina from a sexual assault and is then befriended by her. However is the streetwise Nina to strong a personality and is Monella as naive as she seems. Can Johnny finally strike it big and how exactly does Teddy fit into the scheme of things?
No Right Turn is the second film from Danish filmmaker David Noel Bourke. After a fairly successful indie debut, especially when you consider his first film Last Exit was shot for just 1,500 dollars. No Right Turn obviously cost more than that even accounting for inflation, but it’s still low budget indie stuff. However don't start thinking about morons waving handheld digital cameras around (fun to make I'm sure, no fun to watch). Bourke's film is one of those that stays within the realms of the budget possibilities and delivers quality that makes it feel like a more expensive production. The script penned by Bourke is strong and manages to surprise. Twisting what seems at first like a run of the mill story about some losers into a dark and witty neo fairytale. The film is shot in English and the cast do an excellent job considering it’s a second language, putting many native speakers to shame. In fact if you didn’t stop to think about you would could easily assume they where native speakers who just picked up a hint of an accent somewhere.
As character driven piece a film will live or die on the backs of the performances and the strength of the characters. All the cast give strong performances and the characters and well fleshed out with both back stories and personality quirks. You can't help but warm to uber loser Johnny. One of those guys that is never going to win the game of life, but always thinks there on top of things, a self proclaimed sexy motherfucker, whose endless consumption of coke and booze blinds him to the wreck he really is. Bourke switches the characters dialogue between the somewhat sad and the really quite funny with ease, sometimes both at once. Bourke and cinema photographer Eric Witzgall have created a great looking film well shot and directed.
As this is a very early screener and the film has yet to do its festival run, I don’t want to give too much away. Ultimately all pretensions aside a film should live or die on whether it can entertain you for its running length. No Right Turn manages to do that and more. No Right Turn is comedic, (though not a comedy) thriller, which is full of surprises. Puritans might want to avoid it because Scandinavians in general don’t seem to have anytime for the prudishness which is seeping back into so much of western society (good for them).
While it’s a world anyway from Hans Christian Andersen, the spirit of the classic fairytales is there and ultimately those with darkness in the hearts will meet their comeuppance.
No Right Turn - posters | No Right Turn - trailer
