Detroit is having another bad year. Extremely high rates of poverty, unemployment, and crime continue to ravage a once great city. It got so bad they even had to file bankruptcy. And to add insult to injury, they're the location for the worst show of the year "” AMC's Low Winter Sun "” and now the worst movie as well.
Crave is an ugly, misogynistic, grim little movie. It's a tonal mess, shifting from extreme violence to graphic sex to attempts at dark humor, often within the same scene. Aiden (Josh Lawson) plays a crime scene photographer who daydreams about being a vigilante. His gory visions often end with him in bed with a "grateful" woman. This guy should be institutionalized.
Instead, we're supposed to root for him (I guess) to get the girl. Emma Lung, essentially playing Zooey Deschanel with low self-esteem, is his newly single neighbor Virginia. The whole time I was just wishing she would run away from this guy instead of sleeping with him.
Sadly, the movie stays stuck in a cycle where Aiden fantasizes about saying something clever but ends up saying something stupid. Virginia blows him off, but he apologizes and wins her back. Occasionally, Aiden will actually extort or beat up someone who deserves it (pedophile, rapist, thief). But there's no excitement or entertainment to be found in a reprehensible person attacking a slightly more reprehensible person. I kept rooting for him to get caught by the police.
Even worse, this garbage lasts for nearly two full hours. It's a punishing film to sit through that never feels like it's going to be over any time soon. There's no redeeming value to this mess. It apparently won Best Director at Fantastic Fest in 2012, and the voters should be ashamed of themselves. There's no humor, heart, or humanity in this miserable movie.
