Entertainment

TORONTO – It was one of those stories you couldn't quite believe, no matter how many times you heard it.

Toronto International Film Festival

Stuck, based on a true story out of Fort Worth, doesn't avoid sensationalism.

In October 2001, a Fort Worth nurse's aide named Chante Mallard ran over a homeless man, Gregory Biggs. The impact knocked him into the windshield of her Chevy Cavalier. That's not the gruesome part. This is: Mr. Biggs stayed lodged in the windshield after Ms. Mallard, who was returning from a night of partying, drove home and parked her car in the garage.

When Mr. Biggs died, she and some friends dumped his body in Cobb Park and burned a car seat to cover up the crimes. She told a friend four months later, and got 50 years for murder and 10 years for tampering with evidence.

The movies can't make this stuff up. But they can milk it. And so Stuck, which did Fort Worth a favor by moving the action to Providence, R.I., had its premiere Monday night in the Midnight Madness Section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

This is not one of those movies that will make you say, "Gee, they really handled a sensationalist story with dignity and restraint."

Then again, that would be pretty tough, given the facts. Stuck is a gruesome affair, as you might expect since the director, Stuart Gordon, mixed gore and dark humor to great effect in 1985's Re-Animator. The same combination is in play here and, if you don't mind the drastic deviations from the actual case, Stuck has serious guilty-pleasure potential. It could certainly make some cash on the horror market if it gets picked up for distribution.

As so many editorials opined at the time, the case was remarkable for its overtones of selfish amorality: A man bleeds and moans toward death in your windshield, but you're too worried about getting in trouble to get him help. As Tarrant County assistant district attorney Richard Alpert said when Ms. Mallard was arrested, "Maybe we've just redefined inhumanity here."

In the movie, Chante has become Brandi (a cornrowed Mena Suvari). At work, where she's up for a promotion, her patients love her (as Ms. Mallard's were said to love her). Away from work, she's a party girl whose boyfriend (Russell Hornsby) totes a gat and deals Ecstasy.

Her victim, Tom (Stephen Rea), is homeless but only because he has been downsized out of a job. We know more about him than we do about Brandi, which helps us feel his quite literal pain as he writhes in the glass and tries to escape. "Why are you doing this to me?" squeals Brandi as Tom refuses to die.

Her boyfriend plays the pragmatist: "Anyone can do anything to anyone and get away with it." He's the fixer, or at least that's the plan; Stuck takes massive liberties with the Mallard case, as "based on a true story" movies so often do. You can't wring much action or suspense from a guy lying motionless in a windshield, so Tom does not go gently into the good night.

Stuck will likely infuriate members of the Mallard and Biggs families, or anyone else who was closely involved with the case. Of course, most potential viewers were not involved with the case at all. They just want entertainment, including the Big Finish that Stuck delivers.

One alteration worth noting: Chante Mallard was black. Brandi is white with a black best friend and boyfriend. Does having a known white lead make it easier to sell a movie? What do you think? Stuck doesn't really show that truth is stranger than fiction. It shows that the truth is generally too messy to exploit in a marketable movie.