Synopsis

Miami drug dealers Dante and Micky have built a profitable operation with help from a crew of young runners, but their fragile stability collapses when a former partner returns seeking revenge. As bad heroin spreads, police pressure intensifies and old betrayals resurface, pulling the couple and their associates into a violent, hallucinatory spiral.

Factoids & Trivia

• The screenplay was based on Terry Williams' 1989 nonfiction book, The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring.

• The film was part of the 34th New York Film Festival in 1996, with a screening listed for October 3. It also appeared at the Toronto Film Festival that September.

• Although completed in 1996, Illtown did not receive its US theatrical release until January 16, 1998. The Shooting Gallery, which produced the film, handled its distribution after no outside distributor picked it up.

• The story is presented in a deliberately hallucinatory, nonlinear style. Contemporary coverage described the action as resembling a drug-induced memory, a sharp contrast to the more naturalistic street realism associated with the filmmakers earlier work.

• Filming took place in Lake Worth, Florida, with additional location work in New York City.

• Illtown marked Oscar Isaacs first film appearance. He plays a pool boy in a small role.

• Isaac Hayes appears as George, a mysterious figure described in the production notes as a police contact and spiritual adviser.