Its characters are unforgettably batty yet impressively noble...sympathetic yet fierce.... And their actions consistently achieve dramatic merit despite always culminating with a joke.
70
We Got This CoveredMatt Donato
We Got This CoveredMatt Donato
Lowlife is a dirt-nasty nonlinear debut for Ryan Prows, sewn together from vengeful, spite-driven tales of urban survival.
Bracing and well paced, it may occasionally stretch too far for an attention-getting quirk, but Lowlife feels fresher than it has any right to be, given its ingredients.
Prows and company don’t simply play the often outrageous (and occasionally grisly) content for tasteless sensationalism, comic or otherwise. They treat it with an interesting, empathic yet slightly detached tone somewhere between the respectful and the droll.
A messy but ultimately interesting look a a group of downtrodden individuals who get mixed up in an organ harvesting scheme.
67
Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle
Lowlife is also far more bloodstained than Tarantino’s normal fare. Grisly isn’t the word: The entire effects and makeup team work overtime for some of the most splattertastic effects in any non-horror film since the bone-shattering, skull-squishing glories of "Brawl on Cell Block 99."
The tangled plot is ultimately too simple, and the film's sociopolitical commentary too paltry. But Lowlife does have a refreshingly varied and up-to-date cast of characters. With seedy B-movies, just a little bit of ambition elevates the generic.