Ray Mitchell is a storyteller with a mission. He returns, sacked from his Hollywood screenwriting job, to teach English to the 'thug-life kids' in the wastelands of his hometown in New Jersey. His evangelical desire to 'give something back' to the housing projects that formed him is returned by an act of violence that results in Ray fighting for his life in a hospital bed. Mute with self-loathing he refuses to give up his attacker. Only childhood friend turned cop, Nerese Ammons, can pick at Ray's wounds to uncover the truth. Richard Price, the Tolstoy of the urban thriller and New York's anti-Tom Wolfe, punctuates his Hollywood screenwriting career once more with a triumphant follow-up to Clockers and Freedomland. Turning a riveting whodunit into a social document, he keeps intact the thriller element amongst the personal drama and uses his unmatchable ear for street dialogue to fine-tune the truth of everyday language. Turning on their head the preconceived stereotypes of the ghetto, he humanises the inhabitants of a world shaped by the jailyard chic of rap videos, treading water to survive, and invites us to spend some time 'daytripping in the house of pain'. Give this man an Oscar.
