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Homegrown

Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

A comedy that goes to your head.

Life is good for Jack (Billy Bob Thornton), Carter (Hank Azaria) and Harlan (Ryan Phillipe), three inept ne'er do wells who help run master dope grower Malcolm's (John Lithgow) flourishing marijuana plantation somewhere in northern California. But then Malcolm is suddenly bumped off by a mysterious assailant; after a moment of panic, the naïve trio decide to take over the business themselves.

However, their lazy days on the dope far, have ill prepared them for the high stakes game of finding buyers for millions of dollars of contraband. As they plunge into a shadowy new world of duplicity, double-dealing and danger, they soon find that they have gotten in way, way over their heads. But driven on by increasing greed and paranoia, it's too late to back out.

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film comedy marijuana grass grower lowser criminal

Persons of interest

Billy Bob Thornton .... Jack Marsden
Hank Azaria .... Carter
Kelly Lynch .... Lucy
Jon Bon Jovi .... Danny
Ryan Phillippe .... Harlan
Judge Reinhold .... Policeman
Jon Tenney .... Pilot
Matt Ross .... Ben Hickson
Matt Clark .... Sheriff
Ted Danson .... Gianni Saletzzo
John Lithgow .... Malcolm/Robert Stockman
Jamie Lee Curtis .... Sierra Kazan
Nicholas Kazan .... Screenwriter
Stephen Gyllenhaal .... Screenwriter
Stephen Gyllenhaal .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Homegrown official movie site

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Someone has been sampling too much of their own product.

This is a pot movie for people who have smoked/are smoking pot and are definitely inhaling. You don't need to know what the lingo is, but you do need to understand why the characters are behaving like they are. You'll have difficulty doing this without having been there yourself. fortunately, I had a mis-spent youth and is fully qualified to comment on the subject.

As far as the plot goes, Homegrown is your basic no-hoper crims try to break into the big time kind of thing. The no-hopers are definitely no-hopers, and they have as much chance of breaking into the big time as they do of stopping smoking. They are likeably flawed, each with very definite and separate motivations which drives the story and conflict along at a nice clip.

The lead actors are all well cast, most especially Hank and Ryan, who are brilliant. Casting major actors in the minor roles is an interesting move which doesn't quite come off. This is not the kind of film which takes well to cameos.

There's a lot of humour (both with and at the characters), no small amount of tension and mystery from the second scene when Malcolm gets knocked off, much to everyone's surprise. It's a good little movie, but it's definitely not for everyone. If you are in favour of legalising marijuana, you'll probably like it, otherwise, give it a miss.