Rent Body Brokers on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: John Swab
Directed by: John Swab
Starring: Frank Grillo, Alice Englert, Jack Kilmer, Michael Kenneth Williams, Melissa Leo
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
Brought to Los Angeles for treatment, a recovering junkie soon learns that the rehab center is not about helping people, but a cover for a multi-billion-dollar fraud operation that enlists addicts to recruit other addicts.
Verdict
It's got a strong underlying message about the exploitation of drug rehabilitation programs, but there's not enough plot to carry that idea. Treatment facilities aren't about care, they want to exploit and make money. The movie tells us that in the very beginning and never adds much more to that.
Skip it.
Review
Drug rehabilitation centers have found a loophole to exploit insurance and make massive profit. Utah (Jack Kilmer, yes Val Kilmer's son) is recruited by Wood (Michael Kenneth Williams) to enter treatment. Utah thinks he's being nice, but Wood is making a profit on it. The center pays headhunters to recruit. Headhunters even pay users to enter the program.
I guessed from the beginning this wasn't going to go well. This subject nature rarely does. Where does this go? Utah is an addict, then in recovery, and from there he vaults into scamming insurance himself. It's predictable and a bit slow.
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| Michael Kenneth Williams, Jack Kilmer play Wood, Utah |
Utah wants to work for Wood, and at first you think it's to make money to regain the affection of his girlfriend, but Utah never does anything that supports that. I assumed this would delve into how Utah has money for the first time, more money than he knows how to spend. The closest we get to that is seeing his house and car in passing.
Utah needs to work for Wood so the movie can show us how this exploit works and just how profitable it can be. Wood quickly accepts Utah because the movie needs him to. This shows us the low point of being an addict, and then quickly has Utah pivot from needing to providing treatment. This does a great job of showing us the problem with the system, but it doesn't need an entire movie to do that. This makes nearly everyone in this system look shady. Even doctors get in on this scam.
The characters are flat. They exist just to bolster how treatment facilities exploit the system. None of the characters have underlying motivations. I wanted to give Utah a goal. He wants his girlfriend back, he wants to live a life with money he always dreamed about, but he doesn't have any goals. This could explore the situation Utah is in. He's a recovering addict still in that world. That can't be easy, but he doesn't have any temptation until the end when the movie wants to interject drama. This could explore Utah's previous life where he was robbing convenience stores to now being effectively rich and how that affects his prior relationships, but the only person he seems to know is his former girlfriend. The movie wants us to feel bad for how she doesn't recover and is trapped in the system. There just isn't enough there.
The basis for this movie is great, but this needs to do more in developing the characters. These former addicts now work to exploit the system, but why? They need a goal, even if it was just to make money. As it is, these characters serve the plot, not themselves. If they acted just for themselves, that could certainly create some needed conflict.
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