This offbeat piece intrigued me, not so much for the story itself, but the unflinching way in which Buscemi films his subjects. He's completely brutal in displaying Tommy and his friends as losers. Not slackers, not people with no lives, but actual *losers*, people with sad stories and tragedies hanging about them in tatters. The viewer can't help but empathize with their plight, while also regarding it as pathetic. Don't watch this one with lots of alcohol, or cold and lonely after your wife of seventeen years left you for another woman.
Review of Trees Lounge
