Laws of Gravity – 3 stars

A gritty, frenetic, week-in-the-life story about low-level criminals and their Brooklyn neighborhood, Nic Gomez’s handheld, documentary style never falters visually. Unfortunately, the characters are so dull and inbred, and the tale so dark, it is very hard to care about their fate or their world.

Peter Greene (Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects) is a small-time,catch-as-catch-can grifter. Along with his dimwitted pal, Jon (Adam Trese), he is as likely to steal your clock radio as shoplift from a Dollar Store knock-off. In the doing, he elides the disapproval of his girlfriend (a very young Edie Falco), moves up a notch to selling guns (which have been entrusted to him by another Sopranos alum, Paul Schulze, who played Father Phil Intintola), and protects Jon, who has little intelligence and less self-restraint.

It’s hard to give a rat’s ass about these people, though they are all well served by the actors. In particular, Trese’s simple childish thug is so authentic, I considered that the actor may be mentally disabled. However, Gomez is so committed to verisimilitude (a better review called the picture “mercilessly anthropological”) that most scenes boil down to dunces and half-wits yelling at each other. Violence is always looming, but you start to pine for it, if only to shut everyone up.

On the plus side, the camerawork is so dizzying and assured, and the performances so searing, it is hard to fathom this was a 12 day shoot for under $50k. Understandably, Gomez ended up doing a lot of episodic television, starting with Homicide Life on the Streets, Law and Order and yes, even one episode of the The Sopranos.

On Tubi.