LUCK & RAT POISONING (1996)

SYNOPSIS
The most rebellious teenagers in the world, fear no consequence. They are the lewdest and crudest bunch of teens you will ever have the displeasure to lay eyes on. With the worry of graduation, and where to score the next sack of weed, this young group of gutter-mouth Utah kids has been led to believe that life is simple. To their surprise, it's not all it's cracked up to be.  But yet, it is still in their nature, as rebellious teens, to know everything and care about nothing. Relationship problems, family conflicts, and school troubles; these are just some of the obstacles that these teens, nearing their twenties, need to pass in their own personal rat race. 

Screen image of Quentin Hughes

CREDITS
writer/producer/director: Joshua Tai Taeoalii
producer:  Nick Westbye

starring:  Joel Stanley Huff, Adam J. Woolsey, Matt Watts, Chad Green, Quentin Hughes, Frankie Gamangasso, Lyle Lambert, Michelle Earle, Stacey Earle, Nick Westbye, Jerry Green, Christa Denicke, Buck Corser

editor:  Joshua Tai Taeoalii
music by:  Toby Seljaas
director of photography:  Joshua Tai Taeoalii
exectuive producers:  Gabe Jolley & Danielle Williams
story by:  Joshua Tai Taeoalii & Nick Westbye
screenplay by:  Joshua Tai Taeoalii

PICTURES

Screen image of Chad Green

Screen image of Quentin Hughes

REVIEW
by Jeff Vice
Deseret News

Two locally made, feature-length motion pictures are being screened in Salt Lake City this weekend:

LUCK AND RAT POISONING is the first feature by young Salt Lake filmmakers Joshua Taeoalii and Nick Westbye. The comedy-drama features a group of teenage and early 20-something Utahns rebelling against their parents and community.  That rebellion includes taking drugs and indulging in sexual practices. But as Taeoalii observed, "life isn't as easy as these kids think it is, especially when you're doing drugs."

"Their minds and relationships are poisoned by drugs, and they have to find out how to deal with that,'' he said during a telephone interview.

Taeoalii, a self-professed movie buff, wrote the screenplay and directed most of the scenes. Westbye helped finance the project and eventually wound up directing the remaining scenes.

The Utah Film & Video Center will screen Luck and Rat Poisoning on Friday, Jan. 9, at the Salt Lake Art Center's Creer Auditorium, 20 S. West Temple.

The movie is not rated, but contains some R-rated language, and some frank and vulgar references.

Tickets for the one-night-only showing, which starts at 8 p.m., are $5 at the door. When the film was first screened at the center in October, tickets sold out and some people had to be turned away at the door.