Puncture (film)

Cast

Plot

Mike Weiss is a young Houston lawyer and a drug addict. Paul Danziger is his longtime friend and straight-laced law partner. They decide to take on a case involving Vicky, a local ER nurse, who is pricked by a contaminated needle. As Weiss and Danziger dig deeper into the case, a healthcare and pharmaceutical conspiracy teeters on exposure and heavyweight attorneys move in on the defense. Out of their league but invested in their own gain, the mounting pressure of the case pushes the two underdog lawyers and their business to the breaking point.

Production

The original story was written by Danziger. Filming began on February 10, 2010 in Texas. The film was directed by Adam Kassen and Mark Kassen. Adam Kassen was quoted as saying, "From the moment we heard about this story, we connected to what it says about the current state of our medical industry and the flawed hero that tries to fix it."

Release

After the film premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Millennium Films acquired the distribution rights. It had a limited release on September 23, 2011, and played in five theaters. The total domestic gross was $68,945.

Puncture was released on DVD and Blu-ray on January 3, 2012.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 51% of 41 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review, and the average rating was 5.6/10; the site consensus reads: "Theres a compelling story at the heart of Puncture but viewers will have to pierce through the formulaic storytelling to find it." Metacritic rated it 54/100 based on 17 reviews. Roger Ebert rated it 3/4 stars and wrote that Evans performance upstages the issues raised in the film. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The film is chock-a-block with extraordinary performances and no one will fault the filmmaking either. This is a well-made movie, make no mistake. It just suffers from a dysfunctional hero." Ronnie Scheib of Variety wrote, "Though conceptually intriguing, the mix of downward drug spiral with uphill struggle for good never really coalesces." Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times wrote, "Notable at least in part for its fumbled potential, this health-care-industry melodrama possesses all the right ingredients: an idealistic young lawyer, a corrupt corporate villain and a sympathetic victim. It just fails to assemble them into a compelling whole."