American Dreamer

A down on his luck man (Jim Gaffigan) is now working as taxi driver after being made redundant. With child care costs and unsympathetic ex wife things look very bleak. He takes a job which ends up being driving round a drug dealer on his money collections. Desperately he kidnaps the dealers son and demands 20k for his return. When you see Jim Gaffigan's name you expect light hearted and funny but don't be fooled this is an edge of the seat drama filled ride.

Gritty and dark drama with decent suspense throughout.

Jim Gaffigan is excellent as Cam, a rideshare driver who has strong mental problems and is under severe financial stress. Robbie Jones is also superb as Mazz, a drug dealer who hires Cam's vehicle for the day. In one desperate moment, Cam decides to kidnap for ransom Mazz's young son, and things will take a terrible turn thereafter.

Overall, definitely not your feel-good movie of the month, but if you like very dark films you may very well like this one. Raw language throughout, increasing violence, and one explicit sex scene.

His range is so unexpected?? but amazing?? he makes you feel for his character so deeply even though he's betraying your trust every chance he gets. amazing paradox and references to much broader current events.

Positive: The summary describes the plot well. A creative mixing of rather ordinary done before subplots. Negatives: As others have mentioned you probably won't find any boy/girl scouts amongst all the characters. Usual stereotypes of troubled divorced loser father; his wife; drug dealers. Lots of negatives (left with a bad taste type story), even the ending, but maybe that's the reality the writers intended.

I'll try to render my opinion without any spoilers. First, the acting is top notch, especially the Latina mother of the kidnapped boy in question. She was completely believable as a streetwise habitue and I suspect she will have a long future in Hollywood. Everyone else was fine, so no complaints there. Why seven out of ten? Well, in the end, the "story" was a bit far-fetched: a down-on-his-luck cabbie resorts to kidnapping in order to make money for child support? I guess, in Hollywood terms, this is probably akin to Al Pacino holding up a bank to pay for his lover's sex-change operation in Dog Day Afternoon. What man will do when they're desperate! Is this a film worth seeing? Sure. You won't be disappointed.