Curveball (2015/RLJ DVD)

Picture: C Sound: C Extras: D Film: C+

Brandon Thaxton's Curveball (2015) is about a boy named Nolan (Rockmund Dunbar), a rising star on his high school baseball team, but when he gets into drugs, he loses his grades, performance, friends and even girl friend. As he loses them one by one, he gets deeper into drugs and soon his only escape from reality is his drug addiction. While it is hard for him, can tough love, rehab and a mother's love be enough to save him?

Nolan is your typical American white high school boy; while he studies hard in school and plays hard on the baseball team, his only problem is he parties even harder. His best friend Sam gets him hooked on drugs, but when Sam dies of an overdose Nolan feels the guilt and denial. The only way he know how to escape from the pain is to get even higher. His nurse/mother tries to get him into drug rehab and help him go cold turkey, his need for drugs only gets worst and he rapidly loses his health, grades and everything that once made him a star. In the end, the help comes too late from the system and his withdrawal systems get so bad that he does anything for just one more high.

This is another teen drug movie for "Kids... this your brain ...and this is your brain on drugs" message movie, but I guess there are no happy ends for this movie, no hope for recovering. Now a days, it is better to show kids what a death of an addict is like than give them hope that a drug addict can recover. The real lesson is there is no true cure fore drug addicts, they will never get better, addicts will be addicts for he rest of the remainder of their lives, even if they don't die their lives will be a constant struggle, so it is better that people to learn how to avoid drugs and people who associate with them.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a very soft HJD shoot and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is as poor, flat and weak, so don't expect much from the playback performance. There are no extras.

- Ricky Chiang