Dark Humor of ‘Gravesend’ Sheds Light on Young Losers

When Salvatore Stabile, an NYU film school dropout, began making his galvanizing “Gravesend” at the age of 19--he’s now 22--it was as if he jumped off the highest diving board he could find. He pulls us into the dark undertow that ensnares four young men from the Brooklyn neighborhood of the film’s staggeringly apt title, an Italian American enclave located right across from Coney Island.

Stabile has said he improvised the entire film with his actors, drawing upon his characters from a novel he wrote at 15. He narrates his story off screen, saying that “thank God” he wasn’t along with his purportedly fictional pals on a certain night. They are Tony Tucci’s mustached and goateed Zane, who has a hair-trigger temper; Michael Parducci’s Ray; Tom Malloy’s Chicken; and Thomas Brandise’s Mikey, the sensitive hanger-on of the group and its scapegoat. Mikey’s also the smartest of the four and the only one capable of anything resembling reflection.

The guys are hanging out, getting high and loud in the basement den in a row house owned by Ray’s older brother, who comes downstairs to clear them out because he has to get up for work at 6:30 the next morning. Zane and the brother immediately clash, and Zane pulls a gun that of course is not supposed to have any bullets in it. Not that Zane particularly cares one way or another. The brother winds up dead, and the four friends suddenly have a corpse on their hands.

Stabile is a natural storyteller with a camera, and he shows the sureness of his instincts with a fast black-and-white montage revealing that the dead man is no great loss. Stabile’s too smart to imply that this justifies shooting the guy, accidentally or otherwise, but it’s a shrewd way of mollifying us, buying just enough time to catch us up in the adventure the young men have embarked upon. At this point, Stabile starts injecting humor into the proceedings. It’s so unexpected, so dark-beyond-dark, that astoundingly you may find yourself actually moved to laugh out loud.

The guys hit upon the neighborhood’s local fixer and drug dealer, JoJo (Macky Aquilino), to help them dispose of the body, which the tubby middle-aged man agrees to in return for $500 plus one of the victim’s thumbs(!). How to come up with the cash?

As Stabile is generating the most outrageous humor out of the quartet’s predicament, he’s also acquainting us with the four young men, all of whom are scarred by terrible family lives and are clearly not going anywhere in life. Stabile doesn’t start out asking us to like them but instead lets us see a brutal, indifferent world through their eyes. He’s such an instinctive, assured artist that he involves us with their fates, and we find ourselves caring about what happens to them in spite of ourselves.

Gradually, “Gravesend” grows darker and darker as we realize that these four really only have one another to rely upon--and even that allegiance is provisional. The rage that so easily surfaces in them--Zane in particular--reflects the virtual absence of love throughout their lives. “Gravesend” plays like the back story to many of those seemingly inexplicable street catastrophes that open the evening news day in and day out.

The film has such panache it’s no wonder it has proved to be a calling card for Stabile, who already has a two-picture deal with Steven Spielberg. Surely, “Gravesend” can only enhance the careers of its talented actors as well as Stabile’s formidably resourceful cameraman, Joseph Dell’Olio, and terrific, edgy composer, Bill Laswell.

Savagely comic nihilism coupled with genuine sentiment and a no-holds-barred style is sure to command attention. But now that Stabile has illuminated the lives of losers--a familiar story--perhaps he’ll be tempted to tell us about how a guy like him ended up a winner.

* MPAA rating: R, for violence, drug content and strong language throughout. Times guidelines: The strong violence and language are appropriate to the film’s milieu and themes, but it is too intense for children.

‘Gravesend’

Tony Tucci: Zane

Michael Parducci: Ray

Tom Malloy: Chicken

Thomas Brandise: Mikey

Macky Aquilino: JoJo the Junkie

An Island Digital Media release of an Oliver Stone presentation. Writer-producer-director Salvatore Stabile. Executive producers Toni Ross, Mark Ross & Daniel Edelman. Cinematographer Joseph Dell’Olio. Editors Miranda Devin & Stabile. Music Bill Laswell. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

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* At selected theaters in Los Angeles and Orange counties.