Gridlock'd

"You ever feel like your luck's running out? Lately I feel like my luck's been running out," says Tupac Shakur's character in what is certain to be the most quoted line from what turned out to be the ill-fated rapper's penultimate film. On screen, Shakur always had powerful, effortless charisma, whether playing a villain or a relatively stable character, as he does here. He and Tim Roth are two heroin-addicted jazz musicians, named Spoon and Stretch, whose efforts to get into rehab are frustrated at every turn by absurd government bureaucracies for which the description "Kafka-esque" would be a step up. Shakur's relaxed cool nicely complements Roth's Method-ical madness.

Actor Vondie Curtis Hall, in his debut as a writer/director, clearly knows how to get other actors to shine. (The always fine Thandie Newton glistens as the third member of this jazz-and-junk trio.) He's less of a storyteller, however, and the film's pointed premise diffuses into a meandering, heavy fog. Still, it's hard not to be haunted by the performances, especially that of the unlucky Shakur. At the Cheri, the Fresh Pond, and the Allston and in the suburbs.

-- Gary Susman