Review: Off Jackson Avenue (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                       OFF JACKSON AVENUE
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: Three (or more) crime stories intersect each
     other in this tale set in Queens, New York's
     underbelly.  A Mexican immigrant is forced into sexual
     slavery; an unreadable Japanese hit man prepares for
     killing; a car thief tries to steal enough to buy
     himself a legitimate business.  The film makes a slow
     and grim build to a suspenseful third act.  Newcomer
     writer/director/actor John-Luke Montias (in his second
     feature film) shows us several faces of crime.  Rating:
     low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10

Three contiguous stories of different sorts of crime unfold
simultaneously and finally tie together.  Olivia (played by Jessica
Pimentel) has been lured to Queens from Oaxaca, Mexico with promises of
a job was a waitress in a new restaurant.  Instead she has her passport
taken from her and is brutally forced into sexual slavery.  Her first
day is shown in harrowing detail.  But she is determined she will get
herself out of the predicament.  Meanwhile hit-man Tomo (Jun Suenaga)
has been brought to Queens from Japan to eliminate at client's business
competitor.  He Chinese client and the client's family are clearly
impressed by Tomo's cold professionalism.  But under the facade Tomo is
a mother-obsessed English teacher in Japan.  Tomo supplements his
meager income as a contract killer.  And he is not adapting well to the
United States.  Thirdly there is Joey (played by the film's writer
director John-Luke Montias).  Joey desperately wants respectability.
He has a tire shop that he intends to buy just as soon as he can steal
enough cars to earn the $100,000 to buy the shop.  But Joey just does
not have the kind of mind that can make it all work.

The film is shot on a low budget with no familiar faces.  But that
gives the film more of a realistic and almost documentary feel.  A
standout performance comes from Stivi Paskoski as Milot, the vicious
Albanian pimp who keeps the women in line at the bordello house.  It is
Milot who gives the film most of its dramatic tension.  He has
frightened the more experienced girls into a docile compliance almost
more frightening than Milot himself.  Meanwhile Tomo keeps track of his
ailing mother back home with a fixation that is keeping him from
performing is hit.  And Joey spars with his uncle who shares Joey's
home and undermines the thief's confidence.

The film has a disturbing, if fascinating, first half.  But Montias
lightens the tone in the second half of the film, particularly with his
own character.  His Joey proves that car theft is not glamorous like it
appears in the movies.  And the main character of each story struggles
to win the approval of a family member who is not about to give it.

Montias does not balance the stories evenly, not that that is really
necessary.  The story of Olivia really takes center stage.  It is the
main story and Tomo and Joey really get secondary status.  It is as if
Montias is really telling that story, but it was not too short a story
to fill the film.

While OFF JACKSON AVENUE has that uncomfortable first half, once the
film gets going it is compelling, with the story of Olivia doing most
of the compelling.  Finally it builds to a satisfying and almost funny
denouement with a cleverly intricate sequence involving all of the
primary characters of the plot.  I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4
scale or 7/10.

OFF JACKSON AVENUE opens at the Quad Cinema in New York July 17.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1016083/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/off_jackson_avenue/>


					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2009 Mark R. Leeper