(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“When an unsuspecting Jasmin Flores is dumped by her boyfriend, and dismissed by her parents, she gets a job selling cigarettes in the streets of New York City. Unbeknownst to Jasmin, the cigarettes cause madness, chaos, and murders in Manhattan. Once the murders begin to pile up, Jasmin has to claim her innocence while solving the riddle of the laced cigarettes.”
The biggest magic trick to understanding storytelling is knowing just how much story one has to tell.
It goes without saying that films are wildly different lengths. For example, in the 1980’s there was a major Hollywood producer who insisted that each and every one of his productions clock in at, roughly, 90-minutes of running time. This wasn’t because he felt that was necessarily the perfect narrative length but rather it gave theater owners and cinema chains the exact amount of wiggle room they needed to maximize the number of screenings in the average business day. Still, this push helped studios eventually streamline their efforts to the point wherein directors, producers, and screenwriters were shucking only those tales that used ‘just enough story’ to fill that available window of opportunity; and I think audiences benefitted greatly from growing used to such parameters.
In the 1990’s, however, the industry as a whole started reached well beyond the originally endorsed 90-minutes. Stories grew a bit more lavish – certainly casts could be fleshed out with more faces, and piling on more actors and actresses typically meant that the scripts had to be expanded as well – and long gone were the days wherein the storytellers and their theatrical outlets worked in sync to achieve maximum profitability. Naturally, this helped fuel increases in ticket prices along with concessions; and – for better or for worse – this pretty much sums up where we are today. Studios and independent filmmakers are, largely, free to work off of whatever running length they desire, allowing for each new adventure to take as long as those in charge want it to be.
This is where, structurally, The Cigarette (2024) suffers.
As a stand-alone Horror-laced Thriller with some comic undertones, it never quite feels like one cohesive story. Its first half is quite cleverly buoyed by a low-key performance of actress Jasmin Flores – playing herself, essentially: out-of-work and just emerging from a bad relationship, she needs not only a place to stay but also a means to make a living. Her parents have rented out her room; and her long-time gal pal can only spare putting her up for a week, and even that offer is under the condition that she gets a job. Lo and behold, Jasmin encounters a curious stranger at a back table in a darkened bar, and he offers her the chance to make a small fortune quickly if she’s willing to do nothing more than face-to-face marketing efforts to push his exclusive line of cigarettes. Having nowhere else to turn, she agrees.
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“When an unsuspecting Jasmin Flores is dumped by her boyfriend, and dismissed by her parents, she gets a job selling cigarettes in the streets of New York City. Unbeknownst to Jasmin, the cigarettes cause madness, chaos, and murders in Manhattan. Once the murders begin to pile up, Jasmin has to claim her innocence while solving the riddle of the laced cigarettes.”
The biggest magic trick to understanding storytelling is knowing just how much story one has to tell.
It goes without saying that films are wildly different lengths. For example, in the 1980’s there was a major Hollywood producer who insisted that each and every one of his productions clock in at, roughly, 90-minutes of running time. This wasn’t because he felt that was necessarily the perfect narrative length but rather it gave theater owners and cinema chains the exact amount of wiggle room they needed to maximize the number of screenings in the average business day. Still, this push helped studios eventually streamline their efforts to the point wherein directors, producers, and screenwriters were shucking only those tales that used ‘just enough story’ to fill that available window of opportunity; and I think audiences benefitted greatly from growing used to such parameters.
In the 1990’s, however, the industry as a whole started reached well beyond the originally endorsed 90-minutes. Stories grew a bit more lavish – certainly casts could be fleshed out with more faces, and piling on more actors and actresses typically meant that the scripts had to be expanded as well – and long gone were the days wherein the storytellers and their theatrical outlets worked in sync to achieve maximum profitability. Naturally, this helped fuel increases in ticket prices along with concessions; and – for better or for worse – this pretty much sums up where we are today. Studios and independent filmmakers are, largely, free to work off of whatever running length they desire, allowing for each new adventure to take as long as those in charge want it to be.
This is where, structurally, The Cigarette (2024) suffers.
As a stand-alone Horror-laced Thriller with some comic undertones, it never quite feels like one cohesive story. Its first half is quite cleverly buoyed by a low-key performance of actress Jasmin Flores – playing herself, essentially: out-of-work and just emerging from a bad relationship, she needs not only a place to stay but also a means to make a living. Her parents have rented out her room; and her long-time gal pal can only spare putting her up for a week, and even that offer is under the condition that she gets a job. Lo and behold, Jasmin encounters a curious stranger at a back table in a darkened bar, and he offers her the chance to make a small fortune quickly if she’s willing to do nothing more than face-to-face marketing efforts to push his exclusive line of cigarettes. Having nowhere else to turn, she agrees.
What Jasmin doesn’t know is that these experimental cigarettes actually unlock the user’s latent homicidal tendencies. Not long after taking a few drags, the smoker is suddenly overwhelmed with urges that he or she cannot control, provoking a nasty killing frenzy that results in a growing pile of bodies across New York City. Of course, it doesn’t take long for the policy to suspect Jasmin of being either complicit or even orchestrating these murderous events; and this puts our young heroine in the position of trying to track down the mystery man who involved her in such carnage in the first place or risk getting locked up for life as a drug dealer.
As I hinted above, though, The Cigarette’s second half discards all of its comic potential in favor of things going decidedly darker. (There are a few jokes interspersed here and there, but given the change of tone they’re not nearly as funny as the first half was.) Jasmin eventually stumbles across the name of the private enterprise that put her in this predicament, and the folks behind Nicotine Ninja are all-too-happy to have her held against her will in their urban/suburban headquarters. The lady spends a good portion of the final reels trying to escape what really looks more like the average American homestead – filling in for some advanced medical facility – and it grows tiresome very quickly.
This gets to what I suggested above: the real trick to any successful project is knowing exactly how much story to tell. In this regard, The Cigarette feels instead like two separate ideas that were mashed together into a single production. Whether it was deliberately planned as such or evolved in the shooting process, the project – from indie semi-regular Zachary Snygg – never quite benefits from the same energy once it spirals into the somewhat madhouse development, and I’ll venture to guess that most audiences lose patience with it as a result.
As its star, Flores isn’t half-bad. At times, she reminded me of a younger Marisa Tomei; and had she brought that same manic potential to even her smaller scenes then this one might’ve been a tad more memorable. Sadly, the story strolls when it should’ve run and runs when it should’ve strolled; and she doesn’t quite have the chops – nor the material – to make the latter half work in the way I believe was intended.
The Cigarette (2024) was produced by Purgatory Blues LLC. Based on a search of Google.com, the flick shows presently available for streaming via a variety of online platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be, mostly, excellent: there’s a bit of post-production blood-splatter trickery that doesn’t always work … but (as they say) it is what it is. As for special features? As this one is a feature only at this juncture, there were no special features to consider.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended.
Cursory reminder: this is an independent production, folks, so going in knowing full well that it was a low-budget guerrilla effort will help in forgiving some of the minor blemishes here and there. That said, I still thought The Cigarette occasionally had some interesting cinematography and a loose kinda/sorta Twilight Zone conceit – magical cigarettes causing mental distress – that kept me involved. Its second half loses steam quickly when it tries to turn into a heady, psychological thriller; and that just never quite works given the production’s obvious constraints. Had more money been available to give it a bigger, bolder look, then the outcome may’ve been different. Flores hits some good beats, and that helps when the material strays.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that writer/director Zachary Snygg provided me with complimentary streaming access to The Cigarette (2024) for the expressed purpose of completing this review. His contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
As I hinted above, though, The Cigarette’s second half discards all of its comic potential in favor of things going decidedly darker. (There are a few jokes interspersed here and there, but given the change of tone they’re not nearly as funny as the first half was.) Jasmin eventually stumbles across the name of the private enterprise that put her in this predicament, and the folks behind Nicotine Ninja are all-too-happy to have her held against her will in their urban/suburban headquarters. The lady spends a good portion of the final reels trying to escape what really looks more like the average American homestead – filling in for some advanced medical facility – and it grows tiresome very quickly.
This gets to what I suggested above: the real trick to any successful project is knowing exactly how much story to tell. In this regard, The Cigarette feels instead like two separate ideas that were mashed together into a single production. Whether it was deliberately planned as such or evolved in the shooting process, the project – from indie semi-regular Zachary Snygg – never quite benefits from the same energy once it spirals into the somewhat madhouse development, and I’ll venture to guess that most audiences lose patience with it as a result.
As its star, Flores isn’t half-bad. At times, she reminded me of a younger Marisa Tomei; and had she brought that same manic potential to even her smaller scenes then this one might’ve been a tad more memorable. Sadly, the story strolls when it should’ve run and runs when it should’ve strolled; and she doesn’t quite have the chops – nor the material – to make the latter half work in the way I believe was intended.
The Cigarette (2024) was produced by Purgatory Blues LLC. Based on a search of Google.com, the flick shows presently available for streaming via a variety of online platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be, mostly, excellent: there’s a bit of post-production blood-splatter trickery that doesn’t always work … but (as they say) it is what it is. As for special features? As this one is a feature only at this juncture, there were no special features to consider.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended.
Cursory reminder: this is an independent production, folks, so going in knowing full well that it was a low-budget guerrilla effort will help in forgiving some of the minor blemishes here and there. That said, I still thought The Cigarette occasionally had some interesting cinematography and a loose kinda/sorta Twilight Zone conceit – magical cigarettes causing mental distress – that kept me involved. Its second half loses steam quickly when it tries to turn into a heady, psychological thriller; and that just never quite works given the production’s obvious constraints. Had more money been available to give it a bigger, bolder look, then the outcome may’ve been different. Flores hits some good beats, and that helps when the material strays.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that writer/director Zachary Snygg provided me with complimentary streaming access to The Cigarette (2024) for the expressed purpose of completing this review. His contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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