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Free Will, Held Hostage for Years in a
Zealous War on Drugs
June 27, 2007
By Jeannette Catsoulis
George Gallagher as Tony, a
Bronx youth who is held against his will at a New Jersey drug
rehabilitation
center, in “Over the G W.”
The war on drugs may have
temporarily lost ground to the war on terror, but the rehab drama is
here to stay. “Over the G W,” Nick Gaglia’s lean yet harrowing
dramatization of his own experiences with drug rehabilitation in the
late 1990s, follows a troubled brother and sister (George Gallagher
and Kether Donohue) as they are removed from their Bronx home and
committed to a New Jersey treatment center by their well-meaning
parents.
As an expected 30-day stay
stretches to two years, the siblings are systematically brainwashed
into a state of abject fear by cultlike staff members and the
center’s menacing director (Albert Insinnia). Imprisoned and
physically abused, the inmates are encouraged to inform on their
erstwhile “druggie friends” and persuaded of their inability to
survive outside the clinic. These scenes, remarkable in their
restraint, strikingly capture the gradual erosion of free will and
the seductiveness of tipping from rebellion to compliance.
Interweaving gritty black-and-white
with saturated color — a sickly yellow-green for inside the center
and throbbing reds and blues outside — “Over the G W” is a
disturbing look at reprogramming that masquerades as rehabilitation.
Having been forced to drink the Kool-Aid, Mr. Gaglia has produced a
work that’s as much an act of emesis as of filmmaking.
OVER THE G W
Opens today in Manhattan.
Written, produced, directed and
edited by Nick Gaglia; director of photography, Mr. Gaglia; music by
John Presnell and Will Di Martino; released by Seventh Art
Releasing. At the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East Third Street,
at Avenue A, East Village. Running time: 76 minutes. This film is
not rated.
WITH: George Gallagher (Tony Serra),
Kether Donohue (Sofia Serra), G. R. Johnson (Mr. Morris), Albert
Insinnia (Dr. Hiller), Michael Mathis (Joe), Justin Swain (James)
and Jessika Graff (Jeanie).
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