THE ART OF ORIGINAL  FILMMAKING

Puncture

Point of View
Disturbingly provocative, Puncture is a hardcore journey into drug abuse, the addiction to power, and the weakness of human nature.
Chris Evans is sensational and delivers a tour de force as an arrogant and suave Casanova who abuses the American Dream. Evans masterfully crawls under the skin of a flawed egotist, an over bearing but sensitive  underdog Houston lawyer and a functioning drug addict who goes to extreme lengths to expose a powerful and corrupt pharmaceutical conspiracy and take on heavyweight attorneys who move in on the defense.
Evans is remarkable as he buffs up his dramatic potential as an actor and sheds the lightweight and wholesome boy-next-door image; his spirited performance is powerful as he commands attention and receives an empathetic response to a character that is nasty and mean spirited.
The case his character works on is based on true events and involves a local ER nurse, who is pricked by a contaminated needle on the job, and informs Evans about a conspiracy that prevents disposable needles from being made available at clinics and hospitals.
Puncture powerfully exposes how the spread of deadly viruses is compromised by greed, and how this causes a tragic and unfortunate dilemma.
Fortunately, brothers and directors Mark and Adam Kassen (who also wrote the screenplay) bring this real-life story to the screen with all the urgency and passion of the subjects themselves. The Kassen's never exploit the subject matter, but skillfully uses the film medium to showcase their extraordinary visual sensibility, which illuminates their potent script.
The film focuses on a character whose ego is fed by drugs, and whose insatiable desire spirals downward into a soul destroying black hole and destructive identity crisis.
Anyone who has ever been a slave to addiction or subjected to its destructive power will be able to relate to its emotional honesty and passionate delivery.
As with films like Aronofsky's Requiem For a Dream, Puncture is a heart rendering and tender view into a subject matter that is often misunderstood or misinterpreted.
It's a hard-hitting film that dares to remain true to its telling and one you will remember long after leaving the cinema.
Make sure to see Puncture. It's most definitely one of those rare cinematic experiences that will change your view on controversial issues and unsavoury characters that fall outside your comfort zone.
Reviewed by Daniel Dercksen.  Rating 5/5

The story
Mike Weiss (Chris Evans) is a talented young Houston lawyer and a functioning drug addict. Paul Danziger (co-director Mark Kassen), his longtime friend and partner, is the straight-laced and responsible yin to Mike's yang. Their mom-and-pop personal injury law firm is getting by, but things really get interesting when they decide to take on a case involving Vicky (Vinessa Shaw), a local ER nurse, who is pricked by a contaminated needle on the job. As Weiss and Danziger dig deeper into the case, a health care and pharmaceutical conspiracy teeters on exposure and heavyweight attorneys move in on the defense. Out of their league but invested in their own principles, the mounting pressure of the case pushes the two underdog lawyers and their business to the breaking point.
 
Brothers and directors Mark and Adam Kassen bring this real-life story to the screen with all the urgency and passion of the subjects themselves. The result is an effective issue-driven drama that finds its footing in a contemporary David and Goliath story.

Along side his brother Mark, Adam Kassan's feature film producing credits include; The Sasquatch Gang (Starring Justin Long, Jeremy Sumpter), which won the Audience Award at the Slamdance Film Festival and Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Aspen Comedy Festival, The Good Student (starring Tim Daly, Hayden Panettiere, Trigger Happy, for IFC Productions and Bernard and Doris for HBO Films (starring Susan Sarandon, Ralph Fiennes and directed by Bob Balban), for which Adam was nominated for a Golden Globe, Emmy and Producer of the Year Award by the Producers Guild America. He just wrapped production on the film BIG SUR, based on the Jack Kerouac novel (starring Kate Bosworth, Josh Lucus, and Jean Marc Bar and directed by Michael Polish).  He and his brother wrote, directed and executive produced the "Skyy Vodka Filmmaker Competition", a program working with filmmakers at various festivals across the United States.  Adam and his brother's most recent film, PUNCTURE (starring Chris Evans), was produced through their Like Minded Pictures shingle and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC in May.  PUNCTURE will be released in theaters in late September 2011.
Television producing, writing and directing credits include the IFC scripted comedy series, The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, AMC's Celebrity Charades (with Hilary Swank, Chad Lowe and Bob Balaban), IFC's Cartoon Hopeless Pictures (with Michael McKean, Jennifer Coolidge and Lisa Kudrow), and No Joking for Court TV and the Sundance Channel (starring Eric Bogosian, Janeane Garofalo and Richard Dreyfuss).  Other TV projects include: the American versions of the RDF Media series, Faking It, for TLC, Wife Swap for ABC, the pilot Roommate Wanted for Comedy Central, and the documentary The Short Shot Experiment, Flummerfelt Brothers for VHI, and Slogan for Fox Television Studios.

Mark Kasses: As an actor, TV performances include - NBC's The Secret and Growing up Brady,  CBS's Cybil, NBC's Third Watch. and the pilot Slogan for FOX.  FILM performances include - Puncture, Mr.Gibb, WHY NOT and Trigger Happy, for IFC productions.  STAGE performances include - the Tony Award winning Broadway production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo, directed by Ron Logormosito (traveled it to Los Angeles) and the Off-Broadway production of Things you Shouldn't Say Past Midnight, directed by John Rando. Mark wrote, and stared in the multi-media, theatrical play Perfect (at the TIFFANY Theatre in Los Angeles) and most recently the critically acclaimed off-Broadway, multi-media play little Willy, directed by John Gould Rubin, at OHIO THEATRE.
Television Producing, Writing and Directing credits include: the Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman for IFC; Celebrity Charades, Hopeless Pictures, the documentary No Joking for Court TV and the Sundance Channel and the pilot Slogan for Fox Television Studios.
Film Producing credits include: Trigger Happy for IFC Productions; Looking for Kitty, directed by Ed Burns, Bernard and Doris (staring Ralph Feinnes and Susan Sarandon) (Golden Globe, Emmy and PGA nominations) and The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang.

Brothers Adam and Mark Kassen co-produced and co-directed "Puncture," the true story of an idealistic but drug-addicted young lawyer from Houston who took on the mammoth pharmaceutical companies on behalf of a quirky inventor who came up with a simple and inexpensive new life-saving technology to prevent health care workers from being infected by used syringes. Because the big companies did not own the retractable syringe technology, they would lose revenues, so they fought to keep it out of hospitals. Chris Evans ("Captain America") plays Mike Weiss, the young lawyer, and in addition to co-producing and co-directing, Mark Kassen plays his law partner Paul Danziger. The cast also includes Jesse L. Martin ("Law & Order, " "Rent"), Michael Biehn ("Terminator"), and Kate Burton ("Law & Order


Adam and Mark talk about the movie and about why so many successful Hollywood teams are brothers.

This is such a powerful story. What message do you want this movie to carry about the role of corporations in healthcare?
Mark: Adam and I are focused primarily on the movie's mission and the more it can get out there we hope it will connect to a larger conversation.
Adam: We're not investigative reporters. This is a film, not a documentary. It is entertainment. But we hope that it has a larger message. We hope people will watch it as entertainment and then start a conversation afterwards.

There's kind of a connection between your flawed hero, who is addicted to drugs, and the industry he takes on, which is addicted to money and power.
Mark: That's a cool analogy. It's an addiction to money, an extra $40 billion that gives nothing back to the industry, growing itself at any cost. And a drug addict will get high at any cost. It's a more fertile ground to an already-burgeoning problem.
Adam: These group purchasing organizations run by the health care industry started out with good intentions. It was a more streamlined way to get the products to hospitals at the best price. But that became, like almost everything else in the health care industry, guided by the profit motive. It turned into the opposite, squeezing out products that doctors want and nurses want, but because of politics, money, and corporations they cannot get them.

You assembled a remarkable cast.
Mark: Adam's been trying to get me for a long time. I had my mom do the negotiation.
Adam: He had so many demands, a big trailer…
Mark: Adam agreed to give me the part if I finally told him he was right. [Laughs] Well, first and foremost, we had to get the right actor to play Mike. We were introduced to Chris Evans by a mutual agent. We had seen "Sunshine," the Danny Boyle film, which he was great in. And whatever he was in, he is always great. We wanted somebody for that role who would have a sense of tragedy but not self-indulgent but dynamic, charismatic, exciting.
Adam: Like the real guy was. Chris is this multi-layered actor and he knocked it out of the park. We cast around him with really great actors. Jesse L. Martin is a good friend of ours and did it to help us out and because he was excited about the material. Kate Burton (who plays the Senator) came down for a day.
Mark: There are upsides and downsides to making a small movie like this. Once we got Chris, we that means you have just this much money to get the movie made. So, people say, "this guy plays a second lead on that TV show, so he's worth this much money," and we didn't do that. With our casting directors, we were able to get just good actors, the best we could. Brett Cullen is actually from Houston. The last scene in the movie, the camera shoots out the window, you can see the Cullen building. In Houston we got so many great local actors. We were surprised by how many people we could get from the area.

For a lawyer who appears in court, Mike was a very flamboyant dresser.
Adam: We talked to so many people who knew Mike, opposing counsel, judges, people he went to high school with and one of the most consistent through-lines beside his brilliance was the way he dressed, where he had them tailored, where he bought them. There were all these stories about his suspenders and wild colored shirts and how he thought he was the Man!

It's surprising how many brother teams there are in Hollywood today -- the Coens, the Farrellys, the Wachowskis. What is it about the brother relationship that works in film-making?
Adam: We're used to being around each other.
Mark: In all honesty, if making a film is all about communication, you're used to being able to communicate with each other on an intimate level and that gives you a good start.
Adam: There's a lot of debate and conversation and exploration involved, in a good way, with the actors, the editors, the DP. Being brothers, we've been debating for a long time, and if you are friends as brothers that means you have done it successfully. Being on a film set is stressful at times, but no more stressful than doing the dishes together after dinner with your parents. You're used to debating in that high-stress environment. And you know each other so well. You recognize that look that's been making you angry since you were 10 years old that someone else might not notice. But it's over very quickly as well, so arguments don't resonate. We have similar creative sensibilities and that really helps. And we have that basic level of trust



The art of original filmmaking


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