Spun (2002) - Synopsis

For a speed freak, time is an elastic concept. College drop-out Ross (Jason Schwartzman) learns this first-hand as he surrenders to a three day odyssey through a circus-like, crystal-meth Hell in the North Los Angeles Valley. It starts when Ross shows up at Spider Mikešs (John Leguizamo) dive bungalow, looking to score and desperate enough to risk Spider Mikešs paranoid and mercurial temper. Spider Mikešs companions at the bungalow that day include his greasy-haired, red-eyed girlfriend Cookie (Mena Suvari), the pimply, video game-addicted Frisbee (Patrick Fugit) and Nikki (Brittany Murphy), a giggly Vegas stripper, whose boyfriend The Cook (Mickey Rourke) concocts the local speed supply in his airless, combustible motel room laboratory.

Seduced by Nikki and her promise of an unending drug supply, Ross agrees to become chauffeur and errand boy for The Cook. Over the next few days, Ross ricochets between the hilarious and the bizarre as he makes his descent into the insomniac, anarchic world of meth junkies. He rescues Nikkišs dog who has turned green from inhaling crank fumes, forgets hešs left stripper April (Chloe Hunter) tied to his bed andhelps rounds up ingredients for The Cook. As the sleepless hours blur, Ross slides further from the "together" life he once had with girlfriend Amy (Charlotte Ayana), his true love, who has since dumped him, moved to LA and returns his calls only when she hopes she might be able to get the money Ross owes her. If Ross has any hope of returning the straight world, The Cook and Nikki prove a formidable obstacle.

Meanwhile, Frisbee and his four-hundred pound mother fall prey to the speed-snorting stars of BUST, a popular reality show. The TV cops (Peter Stormare & Alexis Arquette) stake out Frisbeešs trailer, arrest him and force him to set up Spider Mike by wearing a wire. Frisbee suffers Spider Mikešs wrath as Mike, dressed only in a sock, realizes the betrayal. Ross and Nikki narrowly escape the bust to spend an aimless night driving around in his beater Volvo, revealing their mutual loneliness and denial of what they have become. Nikki thinks shešll go back to Las Vegas to reunite with her abandoned baby; Ross wants hešll go to LA to win back Amy; but both have lost the will to break free of the downward spiral theyšre riding. In the words of The Cook, both have crossed the crystal-meth line of no return: theyšre "spun." With its humor, electric visual style and intensely experiential point of view, Spun explores the razor-fine line between the edge, and over the edge.