Is there anything more pure hearted than stoner comedy? Getting a little high, then laughing at some jokes. Nothing goes wrong, nobody gets hurt. When you mix it with the stoners trying to sell the drugs, you've got a classic recipe for comedy. That's why I couldn't help but watch Induced Effect.
The film begins with Robert, a scam artist in the same vein as Teejayx6, he loves stolen credit cards and lives out of a cheep motel. The one person he seemingly cares about is his mother suffering from dementia. Diego on the other hand is a good guy, he works as an underpaid CNA taking care of senior citizens. He's caught stealing medications, because they match the ones his sister needs to fight Sickle Cell, the same disease that killed their father. Robert convinces Diego to get involved with selling the pills, mostly Viagra. Robert also brings two waitresses, Karen and Donna, who let him use stolen credit cards prior. Lastly is Robert's sometimes friend Peanut.
The group sells the drugs with no problem. Robert gets the money to pay off the mobsters he owes. Donna gets to ball out, Karen has the money for her university, but Diego is short. Karen and Diego into business themselves. But, Diego gets arrested. Robert manages to get him out of jail and everyone lives happily ever after.
My favorite thing about the film, might be the cinematography. There's some really cool shots throughout the film. Some with characters, some with scenery. There's a lot of natural light used, or light that looks really natural. Sometimes films with a lot of black people or people of color in general, aren't well lit. This can cause some odd looking shots, but that wasn't the case here. Everything was beautiful. You can't deny this is a great looking movie.
The rest of the movie isn't the greatest. The acting could have been stronger, but nobody was truly terrible. Watching it, I could tell that this might have been one of the first roles for a few people. Rasheed Stephens who portrays Robert, is without a doubt the strongest actor in the film. However, I'm going to take that praise right back because he's also credited as a writer of the film and there's so many things that don't make sense.
There's so many things that don't make sense. The first scene of the movie they make sure to focus on Robert spitting when he speaks and Karen is clearly bothered by it. Then we never see it again. They do the freeze frame inner monologue thing maybe three time. "Yeah, that's me. Induced Effect and you may be wondering how I got in this situation." Speaking of Robert, nobody actually likes him. He gets Diego out of jail, but he still isn't redeemable. He lied to everyone, he cheated them out of money. There's a scene where he drugs Diego so he can run off with all the money. Diego drugs him too because the rest of the team were sure he would run away with the money.
The biggest issue I have, Diego's brother and law. He just shows up at random in the last twenty minutes. He deals drugs for the same guys who are after Robert for gambling debt? He's able to spot the undercover cops that get Diego, but they let him go. Apparently Karen knows about him through conversations she had with Deigo, but they never had any conversations about him.
I got maybe a laugh or two. With some tweaking it probably could be a good film. Again, the cinematography was the strong point for me. It looks good, but the story isn't great and I can't remember a single song from the soundtrack. There's an interesting thing where they split the dialogue between Spanish and English at Diego's home. I wish they could have played more with it. There's a lot of concepts they could have played with more. I don't know why Peanut was there, or why he was friends with Robert. It's not even a stoner comedy, nobody actually does drugs. That's the biggest explanation of this film. It's the designated driver, that keeps insisting they're fun.
You can check out some of my fiction at 12 AM Fiction or follow my web serial Exsanguinate and of course hear me on the Powerbomb Jutsu podcast.
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