User Reviews

I thought the idea for this "modern update" was pretty in tune with Dickens' examination of the humanity in the castaways of society. However, the execution of this idea all but forgot about showing the humanity. The casting was pretty good, especially with the innocent Oliver (Joshua Close), and much of the script was written rather well. My big problem with the movie is the lack of development. We learn a lot about Dodge (at least enough to explain his actions), but it really felt like his complicated past wasn't treated in enough depth. The scenes with his brother were not written too well, or perhaps not acted very well, because you really didn't get enough of a feeling for what tormenting emotions these two were going through. Many of the characters don't get enough development, so you don't get to see glimpses of their humanity and compassion shining through the squalor. In fact, other than Oliver, the only character that even shows an inkling of caring for the welfare of others is Nancy. The other boys, including Dodge, just do their own thing, and there isn't a sense of them banding together to survive. Fagin doesn't get to show any of the underlying compassion he's supposed to have.

This movie comes across as depressing, and with good reason. While more faithful adaptations of Oliver Twist have the uplifting quality of people trying to leave their bad conditions, this movie just shows people sinking deeper into the muck. Perhaps this was intended by the writer/director, but the execution makes the movie less than memorable. 7/10. The movie had potential, but didn't use it.

*******************SPOILER ALERT**********************************

Another commenter mentions that Dodge goes off in the end to kill the Senator. Dodge doesn't kill the Senator, he kills Bill. He kills the man who caused all this turmoil for him and the other characters. He kills the man who has essentially filled the role of his father as abuser.

Poor naïve Oliver. Mommy has passed away and he never knew his daddy. After a series of misfortunate events, he has found himself to be a 16 year old orphan/ runaway on the streets of Toronto. Lucky for him, while hanging out in a local café, he is discovered by Dodge, who seems to have a little experience in recognizing poor lost souls with no where to go.

Dodge is rather street wise, after all; he has been pounding the pavement nightly for quite sometime as a hustler himself. He offers Oliver some food and a place to stay and, which Oliver gladly accepts.

Dodge and a few of his cohorts live in a ramshackle abandoned building with their "supervisor" Fagin watching there every move. Fagin reports to Bill (whom we never see); who runs his stable of boys & girls with an iron fist.

Dodge also has quite a nasty heroin addiction, which he relies on to get the job done every night. Dodge decides to train Oliver in his wicked ways, which the young Oliver seems more than up to the task of learning.

So is the story of Jacob Tierney's adaptation of the classic Dickens novel "Oliver Twist". This is NOT the Oliver that I remember growing up; but it is still a decent movie nonetheless.

The movie chronicles the lives of these young men & women in a gritty and depressing fashion. The movie centers around Dodge, who is played quite skillfully by Nick Stahl. Oliver (Joshua Close) just happens to be the catalyst that could bring the whole business crashing down…..

Will he survive the clutches of Dodge, Fagin, and Bill? Well, you'd have to watch to find out for yourself.

Dodge himself is quite an interesting character, and we get to find out about his family background and what has led him up to this point. It's quite a downer of a story, but an intriguing one as well.

If you like movies that depict stories of sexual abuse and addiction, then "Twist" should be right up your alley. However, there are scenes in "Twist" (one in particular that is SO disturbing and so pervasive that it's barely watch able) that really make the movie hard to stomach.

The film is finely acted, written, and directed. "Twist" balances a fine line between reality and sickness in our culture. Worth seeing once; but this reviewer would have trouble watching Twist again due to some of it's content (especially the scene mentioned above). Some things, I do not feel need to be depicted just quite yet on film, no matter how brutally honest their intent may be.

Recommended, but only for those audiences who like there movies harsh and unforgiving. By the time Twist has concluded, this reviewer doubts that you'll be asking "Please sir, may I have some more"?

The movie set in the back street and the subject was the male prostitutes, a modern version of oliver twist with homosexuality as a subject matter. The movie has a tone of indie film, low budget, well-acted, well-directed. The main 2 character's acting was superb, very convincing as roles they play, one nihilistic, another as innocent.

There were questions opened in the film, social injustice, prejudice, poverty and sexual trade for living. The humanity, moral, cruelty and social injustice. Nothing justified here in the film, only questioning and narrating the matter, as there's no solutions perhaps. Simply at it is, thus, the director was doing a fine job.

The movie is very enjoyable, camera work has its tone right, the characters are isolated in the scene, the background were mostly empty and cold as reflection of the character's inner self. The music's lyric was relative to the subject and quite creates echoes in suitable tune.

A relation of opening scene and closing scene was impressive, one of the most memorable scene in years. That let you think of the subject, its endless, vulnerable situation.

Overall, it is very much a good film. However there are few things I didn't really follow the direction. It has too much sensitivity in the film. The characters are all too mellow, even the Faign's ...spoiler...death wasn't so convincing and it didn't build it to the climax. It was simply unexpected but not in a convincing way.

Also when David was forcing the oral sex performance, the transition between characters were too unrealistic, they never had those master and slave relations, it wasn't so convincing why David was crying, if he was simply displaying the cruelty.

When I said it was too mellow, I am not referring the graphical content, I quite like the fact that there's not much actual sex scenes, however, it was all too quiet to feel the volt, its poetic mood was harming the content and its intention. Like watching a protest on the street without the scream or bombing noise muted. There's no enough bang in the film to creates the echo, it was all too quietly disappearing when the movie finished, failing to create an howl to live on. As though you are walking out from the school play with a touch of adult context.

I was favorably impressed by this movie (which I watched because it was based on Dickens). I greatly disagree that Dickens was like a Disney of his day (as one reviewer stated). He was trying to emphasize the wrongs of society at his time as this film also does. It is also very good to base a new plot on a real classic. I was pleased that I did not have to witness graphic scenes (while still knowing what occurred).

I do not consider this a classic, so have not saved it to my collection (most of my friends/family would not appreciate it -but many of them also do not read/enjoy Dickens). It had the horrible taste of poverty and all that it can bring as well as the evil characters that he liked to point out. The "senator" although making an attempt to contact- it was never clear to me just what he hoped to accomplish, as he ultimately made no attempt to provide any alternative to Oliver, but return to that life.

Another reviewer made light of the fact of Oliver's life (father unknown) but made no mention of the many foster homes (some probably unmentioned) before he arrived there. I understand from my studies how immensely difficult all that could have been for a young man with no real roots.

Twist is an up to date repeat of Oliver Twist about a gay confused young man and his wrong fall in with hustling and drug abuse, set in the streets of Toronto.

Twist stars (Nick Stahl)as Dodge a hustler on the streets living in an abandoned warehouse with other young hopefuls. (Joshua Close) plays the innocent Oliver who is taken under the wing by Dodge to become a street hustler. Set in a divey area in Toronto, the story is all about the life of Dodge and his drug addiction and problems in life, struggling to find answers he meets Oliver who is a sad boy as his mother and father passed away and he is confused about his purpose in life.

Twist was an interesting eerie film, Nick Stahl is one of the best young actors, everything he has performed in I have enjoyed. Stahl did sell the role of Dodge, Nick has even commented how he loves playing the strange roles and really getting into his character. Although little nudity and graphic sexual content was shown I still found this film difficult to watch, and I am confused as to why I don't think it's as simple as because there were gays in it, I can't watch because i am not prejudice against that.

Strange film, I liked the set and the area's filmed and Stahl's performance was top notch but I think the point was lost about mid film, last 20 or 30 minutes, I don't know can't explain it see for yourself.

Dickens' is known as an author who wanted to change society and make people aware of the problems the workingclass suffered in London at that time. He was especially concerned about children, but his intention was often ruined by the fact that Dickens couldn't help writing happy endings that badly fit his dark stories. This movie, an updated version of Dickens' classic "Oliver Twist" is a little like an effort to do the darkness in Dicken's stories justice. It's "Oliver Twist" but without the unnaturally happy ending.

Jacob Tierney has changed the story slightly to adjust it to our time. For example Fagin's boys are not pickpocketers but hustlers who work for the mysterious and dangerous Bill, never seen throughout the movie. Also, focus is more on The Artful Dodger, here called only Dodge, than on Oliver. The darkness in the human wreck that is Dodge is nicely explored. You kind of get the picture of what happened to him for him to become the person he is, and you do understand from the beginning that he will probably go down on the streets due to the life he is living. Still, you hope until the very end that the happy ending Dickens provided will somewhere be present here too. But you still knew all along: there are no happy endings in real life. In real life, a homeless orphan does not by mistake find his rich relatives who gladly take him in. In real life, the Oliver Twists out there on the streets live and die the life of a homeless junkiewhore. In real life, the Dodges of the world crumble under the haunting memories of a painful childhood.

This is a great but dark and sad movie. The actors are all fantastic, especially Michèle-Barbara Pelletier as Bill's wife Nancy and Nick Stahl as Dodge. I watched "Twist" partially because it sounded like a good movie, but mainly because I admire Nick Stahl so much. Here he gives a great performance of a young man literally going under before your eyes.

***SPOILERS**** There is especially one scene that is extremely hard to watch. Dodge's older brother comes looking for him, and it's hard to really understand his motives. You understand that Dodge ran away, probably because he was sexually abused by their father, and blames his brother for not interveining. His brother is sort of looking for forgiveness, but then turns cold and harsh, saying he made the right decision, trying to secure a good future for himself and therefore having to let Dodge down. He says he will get married, get his masters and live a happy life with kids and everything he wants. Dodge on the other hand "will probably lay face down on a street having OD'd". He knows Dodge is hustling, and after having promised him 400$ to help suddenly says "Show me what you do". Dodge doesn't understand at first, but when it hits him he can't believe it. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asks and cries desperatly. The scene is gutwrenching as Dodge's older brother forces him to give him a blow job to get the money, and Dodge has no choice but to do it, because if he comes home without money again, Bill will kill him. A scene that will go down in moviehistory, at least in my book. ***SPOILERS OVER*****

Anyway, it's a superb movie, with a dark and frustrating ending. You know this is how it is in real life, but you can't help hoping there is a happy Dickens ending for some streetkid out there, somewhere, sometime.

Charles Dickens' classic tale of lost children is given a gritty, inner city update in this film from Jacob Tierney. Nick Stahl plays Dodge, a heroin addicted street hustler, who befriends runaway Oliver, played by Joshua Close. Dodge lures the love-struck Oliver into a life of prostitution and crime, while rebuffing his clumsy attempts at seduction.

The boys work for the pimp, Fagin, who reports to the shadowy Bill, a source of terror to all of the characters, yet who is never actually seen in the movie. Although they are at the bottom of society's scale, escape from their lot is presented to them in very different fashions, although unlike in Oliver Twist, there is no happy ending for anyone in this film.

This is not a tidy package. A lot of questions remain unanswered at the end of this film. The writer/director trusts his audience to understand the numbing reality, that bad lives rarely end in good ways. The exact opposite message of that presented by the Dickens book.

Viewers who have read Oliver Twist will have a deeper understanding of the nuances of the story presented here. The scenes between Oliver and the Senator, and the scenes involving Bill might not make as much sense to a viewer unfamiliar with the Dickens story. Not to mention the somewhat comical scene where Oliver blurts out his life story in a seeming single breath, causing Dodge to question whether he was on something besides coffee.

The actors all turn in solid performances, particularly Close, who is flawless as Oliver. He plays the naive waif to perfection. Nick Stahl, who has never given anything less than an excellent effort in any film he's appeared in, again shines as Dodge. He delivers a believable, yet sympathetic, strung out whore. You almost wonder why he bothers waking up in the morning, his life is that miserable. The supporting cast is also superb, especially Gary Farmer as Fagin, who shows he actually has a heart when we least expect it and in the most shocking way.