Director's first trip, Tupac's last

Courtesy of Gramercy Pictures Arizona Daily Wildcat Thandie Newton, Tupac Shakur, writer/director Vondie Curtis and Tim Roth

This offbeat film stars Tim Roth and the late Tupac Shakur as Stretch and Spoon, two small-time hustlers whose marginal Detroit existences revolve around shooting up and accompanying Cookie (Thandie Newton) in a jazzy spoken-word band. When Cookie overdos es on New Year's Eve, the two drug-buddies are forced to carry her to the emergency ward where she is placed in intensive care. Freaked out by the experience, the level-headed Spoon vows to kick his habit. After some bickering, the sour-faced Stretch goes along with the idea.

The two proceed to spend the rest of the day (and the rest of the film) receiving the run-around while trying to sign up for government funded rehab. Well, they do get in trouble with some cops and a drug dealer named D-Reper (played by Vondie Curtis Hall himself) too, but still, most of the film takes place in the waiting rooms of social services agencies. If Kafka had written about druggies in Detroit, this may have been the result.

With its odd story and unique style "Gridlock'd" is a quintessential debut film. Like Spike Lee's first movie "She's Gotta Have It," it's full of personal humor and idiosyncratic editing. Vondie Curtis Hall has realized that there is something very funny about two tuff-guy junkies being forced to deal with the world of apathetic clerks, bureaucratic forms, and mollifying wait-rooms. But the story is not strictly limited to that chain of events. As Spoon and Stretch curl up in plastic wait-room chairs, viv id flashbacks reveal scenes that precede Cookie's overdose.

The film gains part of its unique aesthetic look from the reversed freeze frames that bookend these flashbacks.

As a movie that relies heavily on dialogue, "Gridlock'd" profits greatly from the natural presence of its two lead actors. Tim Roth does a good job portraying a schizo white guy who acts hard because he's got nothing to lose. He embarrasses Tupac by talki ng jive and calling their drug dealer "nigga" - even repeating it after the dealer sticks a gun in his face. Tupac himself is a natural actor, full of vitality. His acting is completely unpretentious, both in the light and serious scenes. In a scene where he describes his first high, we see him pausing to choose the right words. "That shit was like going back to the womb," he says, while staring deeply at the floor. As his sentences eventually trail off, we sense an emerging embarrassment. These scenes, w here Shakur delivers lines about cleaning up his act, are both eerie and sadly ironic. The film shows a new side of the late rap star who was murdered in September 1996, a side that could have assured him wide stardom as an actor.

Although precious in parts, "Gridlock'd," just like most first-time films, has trouble coming together as a full movie. The theme of waiting in line for government services is never completely explained or expanded. And the jazzy, spoken-word music scenes , which try to lend profundity to the film, generally fall flat. At the end of the day, Spoon and Stretch are still sitting around in a waiting room, passing time. But although we don't know where they are going, we're still happy to have been along for t he bumpy, funky trip that "Gridlock'd" has to offer -a first for Vondie Curtis Hall, and unfortunately a last for Tupac Shakur.