M30 OXY is yet another Indie movie, directed by Wesley Mullins, and starring the great Leanne Johnson. The film is set in Kentucky, rural Appalachia, which is a sad area that is saddled with multiple epidemics. The most chronic epidemic is one of poverty and despair. Next we have the covid epidemic, which had cost proud people their health, their livelihoods and hope. The last epidemic is one of the most cruel and devastating, a drug addiction that is sweeping the countryside, enslaving the bodies and minds of people already reeling in economic hopelessness.
In M30 OXY, Leanne Johnson is a villain, and a far more real-life and devastating villain than she was in another film, Dracula: The Count’s Kin. Noomi (Leanne) is a drug seller, facilitator, enforcer, and if you try to cross her, or make waves, she will light you up…literally. In this one, you had better hope that you’re a turkey, because all other life is expendable. She partners with Stanton (Lewis Wright) to supply desperate people with little blue pills that will numb the pain of existence.
This movie is not about Oxycontin™, Purdue’s gift to the world that started it all, but a similar generic form of oxycodone marketed by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. At 6 times the potency of a Percocet™ tablet, this gift to euphoria was crushable, choppable, snortable, and a temporary, but a with consequences “cure” for the hillbilly blues.
If Noomi and Stanton were the pushers, then virtually everyone else in the film were the victims. Eli (Johnathan O’Brian) and Hanna (Megan Massie) were an honest and hard-working farm couple, who were desperate to have a child, but whose lives were wrecked by COVID-19, unemployment and the life-wrecking decision to mule drugs just to pay the bills. Megan Massie did a stellar acting job in her role as a wife, desperately wanting to be a mother.
Another outstanding performance and tragic victim was Wheeler, played by Ashley Stinnett, who was lost in love and recklessly abusing the goods that he was supposed to be selling for Noomi and Stanton. It’s a small town, and believe me, nothing gets past Noomi, with Hell to pay.
By far the most hapless figure was Evelyn (Ebie Adkins), an R.N. who was busted and turned informant by the cops. She was a nervous, twitching, and chain-smoking wreck who ultimately faced the wrath of the ruthless Noomi. Hers was an outstanding performance, reflecting hopelessness and despair.
M30 OXY was a tragic film, and an accurate depiction of the opioid epidemic that had spread through parts of the nation that were the least able to cope with it. This is yet another low-budget film with an outstanding performance by Leanne Johnson and her supporting cast. The running time, however, at 2:12 was a little too long and could have benefited from some serious editing, especially the scenes with the party girls.
I cannot mark down this film much, as it was a sobering and believable micro lens of the still burgeoning problems of opioids in America.
7.0/10.0 With the Goatesians rating of another fine Indie Film.
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