This tale of urban misery is written at a 6th grade level, piles up the melodrama like a farmer shoveling pig crap and turns out to be nothing more than the longest "Just Say No!" public service announcement in history.The main character in this story is Ryan (Michael Rodrick), but I came up with another name for him while watching this film. I call him Not Vincent D'Onofrio, or NVD. That's not just because the actor playing him looks like a defective clone of D'Onofrio, but also because Michael Rodrick gives a performance like D'Onofrio on some sort of cold medicine and vodka bender.After being away for 4 years, Not Vincent D'Onofrio returns home to his working class New York City neighborhood after his brother Jimmy (Kelly Cole) dies of an overdose. He comes back to find his other brother Eddie (Brian Vincent) is a piece of junkie trash and his old girlfriend Carla (Jordan Bayne) is now married to local mobster Vincent (Jonathan LaPaglia). The plot gets a little murky after this because NVD doesn't really have much of an agenda or purpose. He kind of just hangs around while stuff happens.It turns out that Vincent pressured Carla into framing NVD for a crime that sent him to prison for two years, but NVD still loves her and wants her back. You'd think that'd be enough of a plot right there, but hold on. It also seems as though Vincent is connected to Jimmy's death. Again, that seems like plenty of conflict for any movie but writer/director Michael Sergio disagreed. In addition, Vincent employs Eddie as a low-level drug dealer. How much more motivation does any character need? Well, Sergio apparently thought a whole lot more because he also has Vincent frame Eddie for murdering a gang of Latino drug dealers and then forces Not Vincent D'Onofrio to watch while Vincent has doggie-style sex with a heavily drugged Carla. Oh, and then NVD realizes that he's actually the father of Vincent and Carla's son. After all of that, we finally get a violent confrontation between Vincent and NVD and an ending that depends on a mobster being a wise and honorable guy.That might seem like a haphazard description of the plot of Under Hellgate Bridge, but there's not much more to it than that. This story doesn't really unfold as much as it dribbles out and forms a pool on a linoleum floor. Not Vincent D'Onofrio is this ridiculously passive character who does little more than listen to other people give these fairly expository-ish monologues. The other characters are slightly better, yet there's not one subtle emotion or line of dialog among the lot of 'em. This script was either written by a halfwit or it was written by someone who thinks other people are halfwits and need every little thing spelled out for them. The direction is amateurish, especially in its repeated use of fade-to-black as a segue, but it's not that annoying.Under Hellgate Bridge isn't any good at all. It's one of those movies where you hope the filmmaker got something out of making it, because no one can get anything out of watching it.

As I said in my review of THE BLUE MARBLE, a short (13 minutes) that was added to the UNDER HELLGATE BRIDGE DVD (and probably filmed in the first place) as a vanity nod to UHB producer Isil Bagdadi, on a minute-for-minute basis, BM is better than UHB--primarily because Michael Rodrick (the lead in both films) has NO lines in BM.Obviously, many of the early UHB comment-makers were swept away by director Michael Sergio's charisma on the film fest circuit, where it won two audience popularity awards. DVD extras include shots of Sergio fawning over the hoi polloi. In an self-damning bit of candor, Sergio admits that a)the plot here is autobiographical, b)his first choice to play lead character Ryan bailed out, and c)(by inference) he picked his namesake (Michael Sergio=Michael Rodrick) to pinch-hit--an unfortunate choice, indeed. If you don't believe me, check out Rodrick's subsequent 10-year career on IMDb (nothing to brag about) OR look at the DVD's "My Favorite Scenes" chapter of the 22-minute cast interview "extra," and see again how lame Rodrick's line deliveries are compared to virtually every other major or even minor player.

This is an excellent film, a must see. Michael Sergio's direction is the best and the cast is topnotch! Michael Rodrick does a fantastic portrayal as Ryan, former bad boy turned hero. Jonathan LaPaglia is the perfect villain and the gorgeous Jordan Bayne was wonderful as Ryan's love interest. The rest of the cast, Dominic Chianese, Vincent Pastore, Frank Vincent, Brian Vincent, Careena Melia, and Kristen Lee Kelly rounded out the film with their great performances.

this is a very moving film that i look forward to taking my friends to in the theaters. the performances are strong, watch for jordan bayne and brian vincent. the look of the film and the direction are superb. this is a passionate and tragic film. i loved it.