User Reviews

This movie left me in a strangely ambivalent state after I watched it, because I'm not sure if I'm judging it on its actual merits, or my expectations. Having been a fan of Chuck Palahniuk's novel, I was expecting something brash, frenetic and perfectly offensive, but in a good way. The problem is that while the novel was blunt and vulgar, spelling out every bit of Victor Mancini's sexual exploits in almost academic detail, the movie stops a bit short of pushing the edge and instead leaves a lot of it up to suggestion.

Another reason that I'm not sure how I felt about it is because the director took a unique approach to the work that I'm still trying to decide if I liked or not. You see, Chuck Palahniuk's novels have a very distinctive narrative style to them, and in Fight Club (also based on one of Chuck's books,) director David Fincher emulated it perfectly. I'm talking mostly about Chuck's usage of repetition with lines such as "I am Jack's colon," Choke's director, Clark Gregg chose not to emulate this and instead brought the text of the book to life without mimicking it's distinctive narrative. So if you're a fan of Chuck's work, this may bother you. On the other hand, it does help Choke stand out on its own merits and not feel like it's trying to build off of the success of Fight Club.

So for those of you who haven't read the book, how does it stand? Well as I said before, considering how much more graphic and indecent this movie's source material was, I think the movie missed out on a lot of its potential. I almost feel like Clark Gregg went too easy on all of the characters making them come off as sympathetic when they worked better as being completely hopeless. It's also not as funny as it could have been, since a lot of Victor's (the protagonist's) interactions with everybody from the sex addicts, to the people in the historic reenactment village to the people he pretends to choke for, were all summarized too much, and had much more potential for comedy. Overall i'd say this movie is alright, but could have been done better.

The only Chuck P. book I own. It's a very funny book, about lust and salvation, and here it is on screen in...pretty good form. That is to say I was a little disappointed, with the ending in particular, which strikes a very different tone (not terrible, just different)....but that's neither here nor there.

Choke is the story of Victor, med-school dropout who takes care of his 70's radical mom now suffering from dementia and dying after years of drug use and mental instability. In order to pay for her upkeep, Victor pulls double duty at his two jobs, one as an employee at a Colonial American theme park, and two, choking on food in restaurant, so that those who save his life, will feel obligated to help him out with cash from time to time. Who would save someone's life, only to let them die, once you know their sad penniless (over exaggerated) story? Victor targets the wealthy and affluent, "You don't wanna get saved by some waiter", he says in one of many direct addresses to the audience. The broken 4th wall, reminiscent of Fight Club, is taken directly from the book, and one of the films stronger techniques.

In the hospital he meets, a young doctor, who assists him in translating his mother's diary, which leads to shocking questions about Victor's origins, and his father or lack there of.

Victor goes to sex addict meetings usually just to have sex in the bathroom with fellow addicts. While his best friend Denny, a chronic masturbator, begins taking his first shaky steps to recover, which involves romancing a Stripper and collecting rocks for each day his sobriety, "idle hands are the devils playground". The sex addiction and the need to save his mom, are the twin turbines that propel this film, and by the end they are both so clearly intertwined it escapes being exploitative.

I enjoyed this version of Choke, which was kinda of like Choke-Light, but still very funny, if only slightly missing the aim of the novel; the heady and vulgar mix of the sacred and the profane. That is to say, important sub-plots, and main-plot points get muted; we know why Victor chokes, there are more reasons than I stated above, but we don't get to see the people who fund his faints here, as we do in the book, and so that aspect of the story, seems a little disconnected. As do Denny and the rocks, another vital story element for me, got put on the back-burner here. Denny replaces one fetish with another, and most of the rooms of his house are filled with rocks.

(Actually they shot this ending, you can see pictures online, but decided against it, before release.) Okay, but everyone always says the book is better than the movie, I know, I know, I just had to get that out.

What's left of Choke though is commanded by Sam Rockwell, who is only improving as an actor, and Angelica Houston who needs no intro. While it's not as conceptually taught as I would have liked, its still really, really funny, and at a few moments, a bit moving (Ive got a personal soft spot for movies with visits to the demented in hospitals; The Savages is especially hard to watch), at least for me.

It's an allegorical sex comedy, but it's also a very accessible one, considering the weirdness of the material. It's a more personal story than "Fight Club", and almost an opposite ideology, "building anything", versus "tearing down everything", but told in the same sardonic writerly tone, weave come to expect from Palahniuk.

In the end, I just wanted more, but it was fun, and the story was brought to life, mostly just as I had imagined it when reading.

Also it's got the funniest and perhaps the only funny, "rape" scene, ever filmed (it is and it's not what it sounds like).

I had the opportunity to view the film Choke at Columbia College Chicago for a screening which held a Q&A with the main actor of the film, Sam Rockwell; so being that I read the novel before as well, I would like to share my take on the film.

No synopsis here; read the one that IMDb's.

If you have read the Palahniuk novel Choke, then you should expect that this 90 minute film cannot hold all of the sexual intensity (and comical vulgarity) that the novel had the space to provide for. Do not get me wrong--this film is very funny and Sam Rockwell is, as usual, superb in the anti-hero role that he's played so well in other films.

My one (and major) problem with the film is the fact that it was 90 minutes and wasn't pushed to be a 2 hour piece. I felt that there was so much more to delve into psychologically that Choke the novel did with sex addiction and the story and idea (will not spoil here) of who the character Victor Mancini was or thinks he is. Rockwell's great acting did a lot to pick up this slag, I do have to mention.

One thing I did like, which was also done with the ending of Fight Club (another Palahniuk novel) is that (again, will not spoil here) the finish to the Choke film was more satisfying then the deus ex machina endings that Palahniuk sometimes (well, many times) does with his stories.

Kelly Macdonald, who is wonderful in anything that she is in, as well as the other supporting actors and actresses kept the story alive and in a wonderful way.

The pacing of the film as well as the narrative was very much "Palahniuk" and this is a pace and narrative that is one of a kind and most interesting to view; which is aside from the usually predictable flow of the other films of today.

I did give this movie a 7/10 but I still believe that it is a movie that should be seen by anyone who likes to laugh, especially at things they don't think they would laugh at. Also, because the overall story is hilarious and is satisfyingly unique and the acting makes the film whole, too.

And did I mention Sam Rockwell was great?

Choke tells the story of Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex addict working in a colonial times reproduction. His mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), suffers from dementia, and spends most of her time thinking Victor is someone else (mainly long dead lawyers) during his frequent visits to the hospital. To pay the bills, Mancini has a bit of a unique talent: he chokes on food in swanky restaurants, and practically forces innocent bystanders into saving him from death.

I read the book Choke a few years ago, thinking it would be same in vain to writer Chuck Palahniuk's near flawless Fight Club (and of course, David Fincher's incredible film). But Choke was nothing like it, and anyone going to see the film thinking it will be is in for a disappointment.

But like Fight Club before it, Choke is adapted quite well from its raunchy source material. The story is quite liberally changed in some instances, but in others, it is an almost literal recreation. Mancini is a well-rounded character, with bizarrely comic traits that are pure Palahniuk. I found myself almost crying from laughing so hard at the comic mishappenings he got himself into, frequently calling back to the events in the book. It was strange however that so little an amount of time is spent on the choking that Mancini has down practically to an art form, but then its off-the-rails, frank portrayal of sex was always much stronger. First-time director Clark Gregg does an excellent job making this character so true to Palahniuk's work that you can forgive him for glossing off something so integral to the plot (but at least it makes for a whole lot less convoluted, confusing and downright silly third act). Gregg's addition of the little idiosyncrasies of Mancini's lifestyle (small cuts to previous sexual encounters, frequent breast-filled day dreams) only further strengthens how close the film cuts to its source material.

But despite being 92 minutes long, I think Gregg could have done with a touch more editing. The film is not lengthy at all (many sequences practically zip by in the hyper-kinetic sense of Fight Club before it), but the film feels quite long in some instances. Despite their importance to the story, the flashback sequences involving a much younger looking Huston and young Victor (playing by Jonah Bobo) drag on endlessly, nearly losing their train of thought mid-scene. Some of the scenes between Mancini and Ida's doctor, Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), also have a habit of dragging their heels. Some cuts here and there in these scenes could have only benefited the film. As well, Gregg's doing away with the third act leaves some subplots hanging in the balance, never to fully integrate themselves with the film as a whole. Non-readers may not even notice some of them (including one glaring omission), but it may strike those who have read it as quite odd.

The supporting cast is pretty well rounded. Macdonald does a great job in her scenes, as do Bijou Phillips in a small role as one of Mancini's co-workers, and Gregg himself as the lead character in the colonial times reproduction. I had failed to realize it was him when watching the film, but he brings a special greatness to every one of his character's lines.

I was a little disappointed however in Brad William Henke's portrayal of Mancini's friend Denny however. Not because Henke does a bad job in the role, but because he does not get nearly enough time on screen. He steals many of his scenes, and seems to know just how to frame Denny, frequently shifting from the downtrodden weakling of a sidekick, to the strong willed individual Mancini wishes he could be. Henke is having fun in the goofy role, and it is obvious that he is very comfortable doing it. He does not have a whole lot of credits on his filmography, but I can only help this role makes him a lot more accessible in Hollywood. More scenes could have only reinforced the notion.

Huston, looking much older than usual for the majority of the film, is excellent in her portrayal of Ida. She does not look to be doing much, but the emotions she conveys simply through her facial movements and expressions is enough to suggest that she is doing more than simply phoning in her performance. The role may not seem too tough, but she pulls it off without breaking a sweat. Despite disliking the flashback scenes, they only further developed her character into the closet psycho she is so great at playing.

But the movie rests on Rockwell's shoulders, and he is clearly up to the task. The breath of life he gives Victor Mancini is almost poetic in how personal it looks and sounds. No, he does not give the same energy that Brad Pitt does as Tyler Durdan, but this does not seem to bother Rockwell in the least. He plays Mancini just the way he needs to in order to make him a believable regular guy, suffering from addiction problems and his need to please his overbearing mother even as she is slowly withering away. You can see the pain in his face right from minute one, and never once does he let us take this idealism for granted. He uses it and characterizes Mancini with a great breadth of thought not regularly seen in contemporary American cinema.

While it is not perfect at all, Choke is a wonderfully valiant attempt at recapturing the nearly demented nature of a Palahniuk book. His unique voice is captured quite fluidly within the film, and writer/director Gregg can be quite proud of his work here. With the help of a great supporting cast, Rockwell practically lights up the screen in a way that only further proves his greatness as an actor.

7/10.

Bringing a story like 'Choke' on screen is tricky business and really does require a competent director, like Clark Gregg (who also wrote the screenplay and acted). I haven't read Palahniuk's novel but the humour and world in Gregg's 'Choke' feels very much like one that Palahniuk would create. 'Choke' is a dark comedy. It's hilarious but underneath the surface there are layers of darkness. The film also touches plenty of complex themes such as trauma, dementia, sexual addiction, emotional numbness, desire, love and redemption which are smoothly included within the story. Yet, it is above all a comedy and while the characters appear as hideous losers on the surface, we gradually get to like them. Sam Rockwell is terrific as the messed-up troubled Victor. Only Rockwell could play such a character so naturally. In addition, he is supported by a fantastic Angelica Huston, a quirky Kelly MacDonald and a chronically horny turned romantic Brad William Henke. There's a hilarious 'rape' sequence with Heather Burns. I never thought I would describe that word to describe rape but one just has to watch that scene to get what I mean. The film is packed in a tight 90 minutes but I wish it was longer as I found myself wanting more. 'Choke' is clearly not for everybody but it is certainly worthwhile for those interested in adult humour and psychology.

This is actually a review from someone who read the novel before watching, and since I'm sure anyone interested in this movie have had watched or read Choke novel or Fight Club, I won't make a synopsis of the film.

I'm going to start with the cons: I gave this movie a 7 out of 10 mainly because of its cinematography; there was zero creativity involved in it. From start to finish, you never get to see and let alone appreciate the surroundings in which the characters are. With this lack of creativeness, it seemed like the environment from every scene was a cheap set and not actual places. There's no introduction to the city in which Victor (the protagonist) lives, his work, the "mental facility", etc.

This leaves the movie with full of dullness and no life to it, switching from one scene to the next with just the actors interacting with one another with no pleasant detail to it. Some scenes could have been better OR longer (for example; the first choke scene in the restaurant), although nice, it seemed pretty rushed. And talking about longer scenes comes my third con: its length. This movie is almost 1hr and half and I'm sure if they made it at least 2hrs long it could have been better, but that's just my opinion.

The jokes are pretty faithful to the novel and most of them will at least manage to get a chuckle out of you. The protagonist sometimes narrate some scenes a la Fight Club which is a nice touch. The acting is very good and Sam Rockwell perfectly portrayed Victor Mancini as the reckless sex addict. Brad William Henke (Denny) seemed out of place in this movie, since his true character should have been skinny instead of tall and bulked. Same thing with Victor's mom Ida Mancini (Anjelica Huston) which they portrayed her kind of healthy instead of a sick, skinny woman.

Finally, the movie is very good and entertaining with its dark humor, but it seriously lack in the cinematography and length department.

Being a bit of a fan of Sam Rockwell and Kelly Macdonald, this was a pretty easy movie to watch. It helped that it was also quite amusing and downright funny in some parts. The sex might put some viewers off, but for me it didn't detract from the movie. I haven't read the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, so I cannot judge whether it does it justice or not. I can only judge on what I just watched.

Anjelica Huston and Brad William Henke do a really good job as mother and best friend respectively.

Maybe a minor spoiler, look for the blond cancer joke the stripper inadvertently enacted, it made me laugh out loud, but some might not find it so amusing.

An amusing movie right up there with some of Sam Rockwell's good ones, one of the few movies on IMDb in which I think the current rating of 6.5/10 is about right.

As of writing, Choke has not yet been given official distribution, and will not get it for about another month and a half at least (depending on your location). However, I managed to see it at the annual local film festival. I'll bring this review up when the film gets a wider release, but for now here is my initial opinion.

Choke is the story of sex-addicted loser Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell). Victor's main concern in life is to keep his demented mother (Anjelica Huston) alive and in hospital. He does this in the hope of finding out the truth about his strangely absent father. To pay the bills, he pretends to choke on his dinner in fancy restaurants and plays off his saviour's heroism for financial gain.

I think the majority of readers here are at the very least aware of the existence of Fight Club, the only other major movie aside from Choke to be based off a Chuck Palahniuk novel. Most of the people who will seek out Choke will do it mainly because of the connection to either Fight Club or the Choke novel (or both, as the case may be). Of course, I'll have to play the comparison game here, but it has to be said - Choke is a very different beast to both its source novel and its spiritual predecessor, Fight Club.

Anyone who's read Palahniuk's writing will know that his books are frequently dark, very twisted and somewhat humorous. Words like "diseased" and "cancerous" come to mind. It's this same feeling that infected both the Fight Club and Choke novels and made them perverse joys to read. Palahniuk's touch even translated perfectly in David Fincher's adaptation. With Clark Gregg's adaptation of Choke, the stylish darkness is traded for a far more conventional "quasi-independent comic" approach. Strangely enough, this seems to suit Choke even better.

After all, Choke is first and foremost a comedy. At a guess, I'd say it's roughly 80 per cent faithful to the original novel (more on that later) with a large number of jokes lifted from the novel. The laugh factor was a strange thing. On one hand, the laughs managed to stay more or less consistent, with none of the jokes falling flat. On the other hand, I personally didn't feel like anything was too funny. Everything raised a genuine chuckle but as for anything approaching "struggling-to-breathe" humour, there wasn't much there. It makes me wonder what's better, a comedy with consistent chuckling or sporadic bursts of hilarious moments. Not too sure.

Regardless, the film manages to be an enjoyable experience. First-timer Gregg manages to handle his duties (which include writing, directing and even one very amusing bit part) with confidence, balancing comedy with drama effectively. The acting is impressive to say the least. Rockwell manages to nail Victor perfectly, yet it's Brad William Henke that manages to steal several scenes as Victor's friend Denny. Another treat is the score, which is an interesting blend of different styles.

Choke not only manages to be an entertaining comedy, it also becomes a very good example of how to streamline a 300-page novel into a movie that's just shy of the 90-minute mark. The only problem with it depends on whether or not your sense of humour agrees with the film's, but if this film was already on your "to-see" list, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Chuck Palahniuk appeals to a younger audience? I thought this movie was very well written, very well acted and dark and disturbing. I will add this book to my must read.

I guess I'm a Sam Rockwell fan, and the reason I desperately wanted to watch this movie and it was only after watching it did I realize this was based on a book. The movie stands alone very well. I just can't stop thinking about it. I never believed Victor (Sam Rockwell) to be a disgusting human being, I saw him as flawed, horribly flawed, misunderstood, imperfect and what else can you expect when your mother was completely insane.

I thought Choke was a phenomenal movie, with amazing depth of character and insight about mental illness. Victor is a sex addict, so there is an awful lot of sex in the movie - if this bothers you, then do not bother. You will need an open mind to enjoy this movie.

The comments here on IMDb are extremely disappointing, so please do not bother reading them.

Choke is a satirical dark comedy and film adaptation based on Chuck Palahniuk's of Fight Club fame novel.Written for the screen and directed by Clark Gregg, he did a pretty good job for his 1st time as a director, keeping a quick pace and staying on point with telling a cohesive story with a consistent tone. Sam Rockwell is the leading man in the film and does a good job portraying anti hero Victor, a sex addict and con artist who fakes choking in order to help support his mom(Angelica Huston) that needs caring for due to her Alzheimer's disease and mounting hospital bills. This is a good balance of drama and raunchy, black humor. While, I won't regard Choke as the best film of this type, performances were good and I found this to be pretty entertaining and funny. Cool flick.

If a group of dim-witted film school students collaborated with some terminally imbecilic stoners on a movie project, it's unlikely the end result could be much worse than 'Choke'. The plot - such as it is - involves a charmless protagonist who fakes choking episodes in order to extract sympathy and financial support from strangers. This character is also a sex-addict, and in between rutting sessions with various women who inexplicably offer him their bodies, he concocts strategies to extract the identity of his father from his Alzheimer-afflicted mother.

The film is clearly intended to be a surreal dark comedy, but it's neither funny nor dark - it's simply dumb and vulgar. From the opening moments until the maudlin finale, the witless screenplay and direction reduces a talented cast to the level of amateur dramatics. Nobody comes out of this looking good, and it's especially painful to watch the luminous Kelly MacDonald struggling to make something out of such coarse material. Everybody else appears to be mailing it in - which, in retrospect, might have been the wisest course.

An extremely entertaining adaptation from one of my favorite authors Chuck Palahniuk, best known for "Fight Club". You know you got a winner when your main character is a sex addicted, colonial reenactment actor who cons people out of money by pretending to choke in restaurants and is dealing with his hospitalized mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Dark comedy at its finest

Not bad.. I wouldn't recommend this as a first date movie or for the elderly.

Maybe you have someone you want to open their eyes to different sexual fun?

I was shocked at some of the things that they did and I am a total perv. lol.. anyways.

The movie is very perverted and the comedy designed as such.

If you are curious what goes on behind the scenes with sex addiction then you should definitely see this movie.

Its a good comedy with some really weird drama mixed in.

Go see it on a matinée .. you will get some really good laughs.

Thanks to Allied.

-LB

PS- Don't bring your kids to this one and do NOT let anyone under 17 see this film.

Consider this: a sex addict works at a colonial theme park, but on the side chokes himself at restaurants to prey on the financial charity of his saviors so that he can pay the hospital bills of his mother, who has dementia, and who ironically is also the root of his terrible lifestyle. This synopsis is both the best and dooming part of "Choke," a film based on another book by "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk. It's creative, twisted and entirely unique, only it's also a bit too much for one film, barely able to make sense of itself let alone for the audience.

Small-time actor Clark Gregg has his directorial debut in the film and his sophomore writing credit for adapting the novel for the screen. He's on the right path, but his film doesn't plant its feet anywhere. The main character, Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), is a crazed sex addict, an insecure jerk, a scam artist and a man with a deep love for his mother (Anjelica Huston), but rarely do we compute that he is all these things at once. His life is a whirlwind of the bizarre that is rarely unified except in the sense that we pity the guy in every aspect.

It would be one thing for Victor to be a sex addict alone, a man to whom sex is a compulsion, where addict meetings are sometimes places to go to pick up girls. No films have taken us into the head of someone like that. It would also be something for him to be a scam artist just trying to pay the bills for his mother with Alzheimer's. But he's all of these things and so we never get to truly enter his mind. We get glimpses into all aspects, but we never see fully-developed moments. Just when we think we're learning more about his tormented past always on the run with his mother or the root of his sex addiction, we're ripped away and thrust into another scene.

Still, the film makes us crave that deeper knowledge, and that is commendable in its own right. Rockwell, who has always been underrated despite strong performances in the past in films like "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" and "Matchstick Men," gives Victor the complexity he needs in that you can tell he's lost somewhere inside, even if you don't fully understand it. Huston is also compelling as a troubled woman with dementia whose past was really no better than her present.

"Choke" is also funny. Although non-traditional as far as comedies go, it provides a twisted sense of humor unlike anything you've probably seen. Gregg does good work here too. Despite the scenes being cut short, his quick flashes of women's breasts (pun there whether intended or not) as Victor passes and mentally undresses them set the deranged tone for the film as do the many clever ending shots of the scenes. They're creative and interesting, but they don't resonate and even confuse.

Choke

Directed by Clark Gregg.

Starring Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston and Kelly Macdonald.

Coming almost ten years after the mind-blowing "Fight Club", author Chuck Palahniuk's second novel adapted for the big screen is the story of an addict's quest for self-fulfillment. No film has been able to establish the same quirky style of cool that was so palpitating in "Fight Club", and director Clark Gregg's "Choke" is no exception. The movie knows better than to try and recapture the magic of its spiritual predecessor, and is a decidedly different experience in both style and tone.

Victor Mancini (Rockwell) has a lot on his plate. His hospitalized mother (Huston), who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, has forgotten who he is. His dead-end job at Colonial Dunsboro has him playing indentured servant to failed drama students in the seventeenth century (Victor refers to himself as "the backbone of Colonial America"). And on top of it all, he may just be the last and most despicable descendant of the one and only Jesus Christ. The guy clearly can't catch a break, so no wonder he uses his group sex addict meetings to pick up chicks and pretends to choke in restaurants, hoping to mooch off of potential saviors.

"Choke" succeeds in capturing the peculiar and eccentric elements of Palahniuk's text, often to hilarious effect; whenever visiting his mother in the nursing home, Victor must confront a senile old woman pestering him for an apology for the time that he supposedly touched her "woo-woo." Such small comedic bits are where the film really shines, because the overarching story is ultimately handled without much urgency. Everything feels a bit disjointed, more like a series of gags than a succinct motion picture. Victor's motives are often unclear; he simply waits for things to happen to him, and then reacts. The film explains his various character flaws through flashbacks depicting his rough childhood at the hands of his fugitive, drug-addicted mother, but never bothers to give the matter much closure.

Despite the story's flaws, everyone in the cast is top-notch. Sam Rockwell thankfully makes for a great sleazebag, but still gives Victor enough humanity to keep the audience rooting for him. Kelly Macdonald ("No Country for Old Men") makes a surprising turn as a hospital nurse reluctant to succumb to Victor's persistent advances. Anjelica Huston has a fun time playing Ida Mancini, lending some credibility to the occasionally exaggerated role. Even the bit parts are of good quality, with the director stepping out from behind the camera long enough to play Victor's stuck-up boss at Colonial Dunsboro, sentencing those who defy him to a day in the stocks.

Much like its characters, the film is far from perfect, but it is not without a certain appeal. Those who give "Choke" a chance won't find it hard to swallow, but may be left hungering for more.

Final Grade: C+

Given the dark dynamism of Chuck Fight Club Palahniuk's writing, it was only a matter of time before a second of his books made that proverbial leap from page to screen. I mean, it's been nearly a decade since David Fincher cast the pages of Palahniuk's robust debut into a combustible black satire- reducing commercialism and consumerism to mere ashes as viewers looked on in shock and awe. The result? A stone cold classic. But of all the books to follow Fight Club, few could've expected Chucky P's reluctantly praised, riotously quaint yarn, Choke. A seedy, semi-psychotic headscrew about sex, sons, sex, mothers, sex, love and scams that's now, thanks to bit-part actor-cum-director Clark Gregg, strutting ominously into cinemas across the UK: horny as hell, looking for some action.

Echoing Fight Club's depressing sense of modern life, Choke draws us into the oddball life of ill at ease sex addict Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a Colonial times reenactor who's spun a wretched swindle to pay for his mother's fancy hospital care: pick a restaurant at random, wine there, dine there, then pretend you're choking on a hunk of food so that the person who "rescues you" will feel emotionally and, more importantly, financially responsible for you for the rest of their life. Hideously shrewd, right? Well Choke's that kind of film. So if sexually explicit dialogue, morally wrong narration, randy conmen and chronic masturbators fail to float your boat then, oh what the hell, Choke is a must see as far as this month's movies are concerned. After all, it's not all dicing with death and decree and sexual compulsion: elements of intimacy and romance do surface in this cloudy con/sex pool.

Like Fight Club, although not quite as profound, Choke - at heart - is a gross and exaggerated journey through one of the various dark veins lining the underbelly of urban America. It isn't pretty, nor is it what you would call akin to the norm. It's a raw, dirty-minded character driven comedy peppered with outrageous moments that rarely cease to entertain or amuse, touch or transgress.

As Victor Mancini, Sam Rockwell defines the archetypal comedy anti-hero: droll, charming, cynical, but a man of odd principle. Imagine Austin Powers on Prozac. Hurled onto the streets of a society-sanctioned, institution-shrugging America: unruly, dense and sneering. The character fits Rockwell like a glove. Giving the ever impressing thesp' his best role since Chuck Barris in Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He acts up a sardonic storm in a turn to trump the character's kudos. Add to Rockwell's, the performances of veteran Angelica Huston and top Scot Kelly Macdonald and you've got yourself a very well acted film.

And the direction? Neat. Clark Gregg's coughed up a wryly amusing, ably structured spin on one of modern literature's most repugnant and hilarious books. There's no disguising that. His droll cameo tops off a good all-round job. Sure, the first time helmer's no David Fincher and Sam Rockwell's no Edward Norton but, then again, what right does any aspect of any movie really have to compare itself to Fight Club!? Okay, Choke may feature a forlorn anti-hero who takes some odd pleasure in attending group therapy sessions, but to compare the two in terms of celluloid worth and innovation would be off beam and unjust.

Choke is a stand alone, illicitly moral and blissfully satirical film that just about lives up to the quality of Palahniuk's novel, even if Gregg's attention to detail and depth he was willing to dive into the psychology of Victor was somewhat shallow. As a fan of the book, this came as the only real letdown. But you have to expect this when 300 page novellas are streamlined into 90 minute movies. Cutbacks get made. Details get shaved. Episodes: altered. Pages: lost. Thus, it's not a film that exactly lodges hard in the jugular, or the memory, but one that's chock full of wit, grit and revolt. Just not enough kick to crack the kudos.

Few authors have as instantly distinctive a style as Chuck Palahniuk: simply look for the most convoluted, scathingly hilarious, disturbingly filthy and twisted narratives which somehow prove revelatory of strikingly genuine nuggets of human nature, usually the ones we would rather keep hidden. Perhaps for this reason, with the exception of his enormous cult hit Fight Club, Palahniuk's work has seldom been adapted for the big screen, with movie executives likely preferring to work with plots which they can be sure their viewers will understand, and not result in heart attacks from either repulsion or outrage. As such, writer/director Clark Gregg's adaptation of Palahniuk's Choke is a daring move - after all, how often does one see the tale of a sardonic sex-addict playing on the sympathies of those who save him from choking to death in restaurants to pay for his mother's hospital bills gracing the marquees? And yet, as surprising as it may seem, for all of the caustically humorous overtones, at the heart of Choke lies a surprisingly tender and fascinatingly complex character study, brimming with humanity and pathos... and yes, loads of gratuitous sex on the side.

Those expecting more along the lines of Fight Club's nihilistic social commentary and brutal violence may find themselves disappointed, as Choke's sordid portrait of a man so used to mindlessly numbing his pain coming to terms with his flaws and potential for good almost by accident proves a far more sympathetic look, albeit one with graphic and perverse sexual content. That being said, writer/director Gregg's screenplay is a razor sharp medley of slashing Palahniuk wit and biting one-liners as well as surprisingly poignant character revelations, blending an increasingly eclectic myriad of events into an impressively concise (the film runs only 89 minutes) yet still cohesive storyline. If a flaw is to be found, it lies in the film's ending, which flirts which but mercifully avoids succumbing to convention and provides what may be one plot twist too many, making the finale somewhat unnecessarily cluttered (and yet strangely fitting) but in such an impressively unique work, such minute concerns are easily forgiven.

One of the film's many blessings is the casting of the supremely talented Sam Rockwell as Victor Mancini, the sort of lead role he is far too often deprived of. It is a testament to Rockwell's immense skill and charisma that he manages not only to sympathize a character who ultimately sets out to make himself dislikeable but also evokes both hilarity and pathos in the least likely places, delivering one of the most remarkable performances in recent memory. Similarly, Angelica Huston is incendiary as Mancini's mother (in flashbacks shown to be an even less stable parent before her dementia) and her interactions with her son prove surprisingly poignant and emotionally wrenching. The tremendously likable Brad William Henke raises many a laugh as Mancini's similarly sex-addicted best friend, and Kelly Macdonald gives a quirky but charming performance as the doctor who may, despite Mancini's best efforts, end up being a love interest. Director Gregg has a hilarious supporting role as the earnest head of Victor's collonial historical interpreter site, and Jonah Bobo proves a rising talent to watch as Victor's childhood self.

Darkly hilarious, sublimely subversive and yet hiding surprising pathos and heart, Choke proves one of the most offbeat films of the year, and is all the more entertaining for it. While the film is without question not for everyone, those willing to stomach the acerbic and often disturbing humour and hefty sexual content may discover one of the most darkly enjoyable movie experiences of quite some time.

-9/10