Crazy as Hell
A psychiatrist confronts a new client whose problems may not be all in his head in this drama. Dr. Ty Adams (Michael Beach) is a well-known psychiatrist who has earned no small amount of controversy for his blunt and "anti-medicinal" approach to treatment. Adams is also dealing with some emotional problems of his own after the death of his wife and child. Parker (John C. McGinley), a documentary filmmaker, has arrived at the hospital where Adams works to make a movie about his work, just in time for Adams to start working with a new patient -- a mysterious and angry fellow known only as "The Man" -- who insists he is Satan (Eriq LaSalle). The new patient is not easily convinced that he's delusional, and as he becomes a greater disruptive force, Adams can't help but wonder if maybe the stranger is telling the truth. Crazy as Hell was directed by actor Eriq LaSalle, who plays the new patient and is best known for his work on the television series E.R.; it was his first theatrical feature, after helming the made-for-cable Rebound. more..
Director: Eriq La Salle
Starring: Eriq La Salle, Michael Beach, Ronny Cox, John C. McGinley, Sinbad
Starts encouragingly and finishes strongly with a twist, but the middle is weighed down by too much discourse when it should be visually evoking its ideas and developing its mood of unease.
As a director, La Salle manages to sustain a mood of looming menace almost throughout, and as an actor he gets the film's best joke: When his Satan fills out his hospital admission form, he gives his social security number as 666.
Uneasy mélange of occult thriller and insane-asylum-as-social-microcosm parable.
Starts on a note of relative naturalism and under Mr. La Salle's nuanced direction gradually becomes more and more unhinged until it concludes in an altogether different genre.
The script is so overstuffed with painfully obvious clues (the constant patina of sweat on the cocky doctor's face, for one) that we don't need the ominous rumbles on the soundtrack to tell us where we're headed.
Theatrical - Best Independent Actor
Black Reel Awards (2003)
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