Tonic

Rating: 7/10

Written & Directed: Derek Presley

Style: Crime Drama

Time: 103 minutes

Review by Mike Szymanski

Initially, “Tonic” feels like a movie we’ve seen before: about a loser schlub who is down on his luck, owes a big debt, and faces deadly circumstances.

But “Tonic” takes some surprising twists and turns as we find that he isn’t that much of a loser and his debts are due to an altruistic cause — to get medicine for his sick and dying sister. And, in fact, he’s got talent.

So, like in “After Hours” (Martin Scorsese’s brilliant film of a guy stuck in Soho for a night), this noirish drama seems like a hopeless labyrinth of troubles for the people who walk through the doors of Club Tonic. And especially for a hapless piano player.

The whole world is crashing down like a meteorite, one patron says, while a hooker laments “I still think the world is beautiful.”

It’s life in the night of the city, and it’s not always pretty.

Yes, this “Tonic” tells a film noir tale in a refreshing and stimulating way, but it’s hard to swallow. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s filled with farcical characters and absurd speed bumps that threaten to disrupt our schlubby Everyman at every turn.

Our anti-hero is Sebastian Poe, a decent piano player if someone gives him a chance. He is a deadbeat, a drunk, and his own worst enemy when he urinates on patrons when they’re being rude, and steals from the tip jar of fellow musicians. He seems unredeemable, yet somehow we root for him in the end.

Poe is played by Billy Blair, known for grizzled characters in movies like “Machete.” This will highlight his true range of acting chops. His character of Poe is offered an alternative to paying off his massive debt: Kill someone that night and all is paid off. Blair has a knack for showing how this quandary truly haunts him as he struggles to decide whether to go to the dark side.

At what cost? This music man has a soul, unlike many of the low-lifes around him, particularly Terry the loan shark making the offer (who is also a corrupt cop) played by Jason Coviello.

Poe’s sister is played by an unrecognizable Lori Petty ( an indie fav with credits like “Tank Girl,” “Point Break” and “A League of Their Own”) who is grumpy and in bed a lot and still controls her rudderless brother.

Another recognizable character actor Richard Riehle ( who has been in countless kooky roles with “Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday,” “Chillerama” and “The Fluffer” as some of my favorites) plays this odd character Edward who keeps popping up in the dark corners of the streets. He is walking different dogs each time. You don’t know if he’s homeless or not, good or not, an angel or serial killer, but he’s a good distraction for Poe’s otherwise crazy night. He offers words of wisdom, or are they words of foreboding?

The director purposely chose a dark corner of Dallas known as the Deep Ellum to fit the movie. It’s easy to see that Poe’s night will be filled with mobsters, hookers, shysters, con men and other unsavory characters on an average night as he seeks to score a late-night piano-playing gig in this area of dingy nightclubs.

Moral ambiguity and competitiveness is at center stage as Poe is backed into an inevitable and unenviable corner. That is what writer and director Derek Presley sets out to explore.

“We see films where the act of killing is handled so frivolously, normal everyday protagonists set off on their journey, follow their arc and at some point end up having to take another person’s life,” the director says. “They usually do it so freely and they never really are affected by it. It’s make-believe. Fantasy.”

Presley’s last feature “Boon” was an all-out action film with a body count of more than a dozen and he says, “Our hero unapologetically blasted his way out of the third act, emotionally unscathed. After that film, I began to wonder, could someone like me do that? Probably not. With ‘Tonic,’ I sought to dwell in the development of Poe, while he struggled and desperately pursued his own relief… or maybe his own unraveling.”

It’s impossible to predict how this night will end, and eventually you side up with Poe and hope he can get out of this situation unscathed.

You realize that all he wants to do is play the piano, and in the end, you hope he finally gets to, too. And, he’s good.

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