Quid Pro Quo (2008) Movie Review

Quid Pro Quo is a derivatively strange psychological film that ventures into even weirder ambitions and conclusions at its moves forward. Though it is not a true indie winner, it is a promising start for writer/director Carlos Brooks.

The film follows a New York City public radio journalist named Isaac Knott (Nick Stahl), who tells real-life stories in a questionable light on the air. Isaac has been confined to a wheelchair since he was eight years old after a car accident, which took the lives of his two parents. Now 26 years old and still seeing his orphanage mentor as a father figure in a priest named Dave (James Frain), Isaac is looking for a big story to break him through as a journalist. After receiving a tip that a man paid a doctor $250,000 to cut off a perfectly good leg because he wanted to become a paraplegic, Isaac stumbles upon a hidden subculture. The group is composed of healthily beings that confine themselves to wheelchairs to ease their craving to be disabled and living the life of paraplegic. Shocked, but maintaining his cool, the group leads the crazed art preserver Fiona (Vera Farmiga), who is utterly attractive, but likes to walk around her apartment in lingerie with leg braces. Fiona becomes Isaac’s focus of the story, as she explains to him that she is already paralyzed walking in a person’s body. The two begin a sexual relationship as well, and Fiona decides to not hide her ambition any longer, by going out in public in a wheel-chair. After Isaac stumbles upon a pair of magical shoes that could change his life, Fiona gives him an ultimatum that could haunt him forever.

Writer/Director Carlos Brooks has a simple and concise style of filmmaking that commends the complex story of Quid Pro Quo. Brooks moves the story at snails pace, but it’s still involving up to its final twist that is surprising, but not shocking. The subtext and layers of the characters of Isaac and Fiona are the strength from the script and the divulging into their psyche also contributes in making this bizarre film interesting. However, the “magical” shoes aspect of the film just falls out of the sky, and hurts the film in its second half, almost as if Brooks places these shoes their just to create what he needed for the Isaac to cherish and a reason for he and Fiona’s ensuing conflict. Though the dialogue is crisp in the film and concept is very multifaceted in nature, the final act of the film does let it down, but does not kill it. Brooks shows signs of being a stellar filmmaker and his work with Quid Pro Quo is commendable.

Nick Stahl (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, In the Bedroom) and Vera Farmiga (The Departed, Running Scared) are two very underrated actors and they do not disappoint with their work in this film. Stahl plays his role low-key and opens up at the perfect pace of the film, while Farmiga is terrific with her role as the intriguing and questionable Fiona. These two actors take this film to another level with their work, and never let the slow pace of the film bring down their energy and spontaneity.

Quid Pro Quo premiered last January at the Sundance Film Festival and is in limited release at theatres. Its content is too blue to accept by all moviegoers, though it shows promise for filmmaker Carlos Brooks and strong performances by his two lead actors. The film does take its time, though being less than 90 minutes long and some choices in the third act hamper the film so much that it can not recover in time for the audience to forget these mistakes.