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Plenty of movies explore bad guy's lives. Mafia, spies, bank robbers, hitmen, drug dealers. You will not be surprised to see them listed under Drama on your Netflix account. They talk about how the bad guys came to be, how they were presented with challenges and met them, hence rose to power, and eventually fell out of it. Similarly, this one deals with a drug dealer's story, but did it from a rarely-touched perspective - The drug dealer was caught at the beginning of the movie. There goes your suspense professor of Creative Writing 101. But the movie manages to stir up the audience's curiosity and sustain it. I'm sorry it's not telling the story backward either Memento fans.

It's how the busted drug dealer deals with the last night before starting his 7-year sentence in prison. The introductary text on Netflix envelope doesn't scream drama/entertainment. For a minute I was questioning my choice. I'm simply too pre-middle-aged to be arty-farty the way I used to be, mind you. But I'm glad I didn't stick the red envelope back into the mail box without opening it.

It turned out I did the right thing. It was an unconventional drama, but still drama, and not drama in the sense of melodrama with am arbitrary climax of some character's accidental death (I'm looking at you Ang Lee and your Ice Storm). To use the buzz word "suspense" (just so those who took Creative Writing 101 won't feel being completely ripped off), it started with the main character's two childhood friends - a high school English teacher, and a stock trader. They each have their own problems. The teacher is being tempted by one of his under aged students. The stock trader is an ass who despises his drug dealer friend and looks down on the teacher. Both are dreading the meeting with their childhood friend who's clearly drifted away from them.

The drug dealer, in the mean time, was trying to make final arrangements so he would be ready for his life behind the wired walls. Along with this process people who are part of his circle of life revealed. His father who was partially the reason he made the decision to sell drug in the university, subsequently getting kicked out, despite having prestigious scholarship. How he met his girlfriend, how their relationship evolved, and how he became to suspect her being the one selling him out, the drug gang who was trying to find out if he told the cops anything about them... He's also getting an earful of what life in prison means.

When he finally showed up at the night club to meet with his friends, one by one, the questions answered: one of his drug buddy sold him out, not his girlfriend, the high school teacher kissed his student but had no gut to take a step forward, the stock trader, despite of the fact that he thought his friend deserved it, felt guilty for not saying anything sooner to his friend.

The drug dealer asked the stock trader a favor but the guy refused. When they left the club and ended up by the river, the drug dealer was able to get what he wanted by provoking the stock trader. Morning finally came when the unspoken words were being spoken to one another. The boundary between friends were broken. Three sobbing guys on the cold winter river bank.

The drug dealer went back to his apartment where his father was waiting to drive him to the prison. On the way the father was describing an alternate destination for his son. "Just give me the word," said the dad, and he would drive him to somewhere far away to start a new life there. The movie ended when the car arrives at the prison.

It's a movie about remorse, not remorse over his decision of selling drugs, but the fact that he should've stopped sooner, being less greedy and more careful. This is real, what a bad guy feels when he's caught. It's having done a stupid thing and wishing there is a gigantic "undo" button hanging mid air so you can click on it and start over. This is remorse itself, no value judgment, not why but what. It's a movie about having your life changed over night. You lost your old vision, new one yet established. It's the crack in between. You don't have to be a bad guy to feel for him, because more or less, we've all tasted it before.