Drug addiction is a serious problem. Not just in America, but everywhere else too as the large part of the population it is affecting right now is young and brimming with unsurmountable potential. It is depressing to see how opioid addiction has become so rampant that we have declared it an epidemic. Director Spencer Folmar’s “Shooting Heroin” comes from a very worried and somehow personal point of view. However, it is a film so confused between being a story that throws you into a whirlwind of emotional turmoil and a faith-based melodrama that all it manages to become is a brooding, self-serious addiction thriller that is easily forgettable.
Set in a fictional place named Whispering Pines, the film follows single father and war veteran Adam (Alan Powell) who wakes up each day with the news of death in his town. Most of the deaths are either young adults who have succumbed to being addicted to opioids or people who are responsible for the said addiction in some way. Like most of the towsnpeople, Adam is okay with sitting on the sidelines witnessing the death of people, rummaging concern and sympathy while drowning their sorrows at the local bar. That is until the epidemic hits home and Adam’s sister dies due to a supposed overdose. It then becomes a personal agenda for him and when he finds two people who have a similar line of thought, they band together to bring the town’s aggressively growing drug problem under control.
Their vigilante approach is direct and applauseworthy at first, with the town’s only cop Jerry (Garry Pastore) allowing them to do whatever they wish to do within the context of the law after deputizing them. They are able to make things better – putting up signs and doing closely monitored checks at the school, but since personal stakes are involved, they also turn sour a little too soon.
The film’s exploration of anarchy vs faith as the catalyst to prevent chaos is adequately done. The narrative doesn’t dive headfirst into the question of morality and where one stands when it comes to human life. It takes its own sweet time to set up the town, then Adam’s motivations and the problem that they are all facing. However, writer and director Folmar’s writing doesn’t quite understand the cause when presenting characters operating in dire conditions. For instance, the film paints a by-the-numbers and one-dimensional picture of the drug problem; almost demonizing each and everyone who partakes in it. It does not dive into the socioeconomic conditions that lead to dealers dealing drugs, youngsters wishing to take it, and gig workers not caring enough to double-check where the drugs are going.
The problem here is not in the messaging because of course the film is eager to tell us that drugs are bad. However, it is so confused about what it wants to become – a thriller that engages or a melodrama that formulates the right path to take – that it doesn’t become anything at all. To top that off, the film also features mediocre performance all around with no one standing out of these brooding characters with nothing much to do. The editing and sound design also feel off, which constantly takes you out of the narrative now and then.
“Shooting Heroin” does want to tell a good story but it is not equipped to tell it well.
