STUDIO: Magnolia Pictures
RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2008
STARRING: Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga
WRITTEN BY: Carlos Brooks
DIRECTED BY: Carlos Brooks
GENRE: Drama
RATING: R

"I already am paralyzed. I'm just trapped in a walking person's body."

With tinges of Crash (not the 'racism one', the 'f-ed up Cronenberg one') and the work of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Choke), Quid Pro Quo screams with potential for twisted goodness but never delivers on anything other than its unusual concept. Debut writer/director Carlos Brooks' film is about a wheelchair-bound young man (Nick Stahl) who stumbles on a world of "wannabes" - people who wish they were crippled. The idea that there are people out there longing to be as numb physically as the world has made them emotionally and no longer just blend in with the crowd as they walk down the street is actually a pretty brilliant one. And lines like "This is a strange new American dream" sound ripped directly from the work of Palahniuk.

Perhaps it's just because I've read all of Chuck's work but Quid Pro Quo felt like cut-rate Palahniuk at every turn. It's not that big a deal to feel inspired by another person's work ("Hitchcockian" is an over-used compliment by many critics) but Quid Pro Quo is a case of inspiration that goes nowhere. I wanted Quid Pro Quo to develop into something at every turn, but it just never gels. It's a great 20-page short story that can't sustain 82 minutes of life on the big screen.

One of the reasons I was rooting for Quid Pro Quo is the involvement of its two leads - Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga, two of the most underrated actors in Hollywood. Stahl and Farmiga are always interesting. In case you don't know them by name, Stahl appeared in Carnivale and Sin City while Farmiga should have been Oscar-nominated for her turn in The Departed (and has done great work on the indie scene in films like Down to the Bone). Stahl plays a paraplegic reporter named Isaac Knott, who hears one day of a man who walked into a hospital and offered a resident $250k to cut off his leg. Isaac's investigation leads him to a support group of people who sit in wheelchairs, even though they have full use of their limbs. His way into who these people are and what they want from him is Fiona, played by the perfect Farmiga. Of course, Isaac and Fiona start to develop a twisted sexual relationship. Meanwhile, Isaac finds a magical pair of shoes, which he believes might actually be able to help him walk. Fiona wants to be in a chair, while Isaac is headed the other way. Conflict is inevitable.

Given its fascinating concept, Quid Pro Quo is surprisingly slow. It's as if Brooks thinks the idea of paraplegic wannabes is shocking and dramatic enough on its very own that he doesn't go much further to develop his story. Once the draw of the first act set-up wears off, the screenplay takes a shockingly long time to build up steam again. I kept waiting for another plot point or another act to start and it never really does.

Quid Pro Quo doesn't quite work as a character study either, simply because, despite interesting work by Farmiga and Stahl, the people in it don't feel real. This is a short story with symbols instead of people and the symbolism doesn't lead anywhere satisfying. It also includes an unsatisfying twist that you're likely to see coming miles away. Once again, it's a chapter-closing twist that you might not see coming in fiction form, when it takes you days to get from the foreshadowing to the reveal, but it's telegraphed too obviously in the film. Quid Pro Quo shows promise as a debut - we could us a LOT more writers that feel inspired by David Cronenberg and Chuck Palahniuk - but never develops into anything more than a good opening chapter with no follow-through.