What was that jelly stuff that pooh bear was preparing to inject?
It sure didn't look anything like meth to me.
And then when kilmer ended up injecting the crooked cop with it in the neck, why did it paralyze him?
How you can have watched the film and not know what it is about is beyond me. The stuff that he was injecting was what is otherwise known as "glass" or the purest form of crystal meth. Not just your usual $25 bag of speed, but rather the purest and most powerful form of crystal meth (which is more powerful than normal methamphetamines to begin with).
Pooh bear didnt want to shoot it up to ease the pain, he was a junkie that has been on meth for so long he had been awake for the last 12 mths and had to have his nose amputated because he put so much gear up it. Not exactly playing with a full deck. Like someone else said, he knew he was *beep* and wanted to go out with one last bang - which he did, just not the one he hoped for.
As for the cop getting it in the neck, again you have to understand just how powerful the drug was he got hit with. There was HEAPS in the syringe (probably enough for like 50 hits) and it's as pure as hell, he probably went into cardiac arrest the moment it hit his blood stream.
Hope that is cleared up (albeit 3 years later), but didnt want any misconceptions of what is a brilliantly put together bit of film noir. Still one of my all time faves years later.
"thesignal"-Thank You. I can't believe there's even a debate about this. It was clearly pure meth, Pooh Bear was shown crushing up some crystals in water so he can inject it. The cop was simply ODing from respiratory arrest. Any non-user would die from such a potent shot. Oh and it wasn't "jelly-like," the last shot they showed looked lumpy and jelly-like because those huge crystals hadn't dissolved yet since Pooh was in such a rush to get off.
BTW, "I didn't mean to impose, but I am the ocean."
"You're calling jonlampe a loser for OD'ing shooting meth when in two posts prior you mention loving meth and reading this board all the time?"
years later...I've decided to respond
I was kidding about using meth ever...and was also just kinda kidding when I called him a loser for overdosing on meth
Even the most primitive society has an innate respect for the insane.
Agreed. It was crystal meth. He mashes it up with a mortar and pestle and then adds water to it. He uses a filtered syringe to suck it up (there's a small wire filter in the cartridge) to avoid any hard particles. As for the guy getting injected with it... he essentially mainlined enough meth to kill a small horse. If a person has zero tolerance for a drug and they are given that high of a dose it sends their system into shock. The moment it hit his heart he would have gone into a-fib. This explains the restricted breathing and paralysis.
I really enjoyed this movie, by the way! Its the perfect redemption story and the music is haunting.
Pure amphetamine, rarely seen, is a fairly viscious liquid; the white powders are salts, dextro-amphetamine sulphate, methamphetamine hydrochloride. Obviously the salts are more managable. When you dissolve in water you have a syringable dilution if you must.
In 1970 I happened to have experience with both forms. I can't remember now but I think one combines sulfuric acid to precipitate the salt. At the time commerce trumped essence. Dex was popular as a study aid.
A year or two later I crossed paths with some hospital-grade methamphetime HCl, which had magical properties.
I haven't seen this movie but shall seek it out. Totally a coincidence I caught the name.
Sorry, I don't buy your explanation simply because I've smoked glass, know what it looks like, have mixed it with water even. That blob didn't look even remotely like glass.
So you're claiming that he wanted to go out with a big sadomasochistic bang despite being the sole survivor in the quest of the million dollars in cash. He was treating the hit like it would ease his pain enough so he could gather himself long enough to yank the bullet and stop the bleeding, not to mention gather the cash.
It's not out of the ordinary for speed freaks to have some sort of IV'able opiate based drug to enhance a high. In fact it can be rather common despite the drug of choice being of the stimulant variety. That's what speedballs are, after all. In this case it makes sense that he would have some morphine, dilaudid, or heroin handy that he was using as an anesthetic for this particular case. That blob looked a lot more like any of the three just mentioned that an ass load of glass, which looks nothing like it.
As far as the cop getting it in the neck, yes I can understand that happening if by chance it did hit him perfectly in a vein or artery so as to "hit his blood stream" as you say yourself. However the likelihood that a random stab of the syringe would find a vein or artery is actually pretty slim. This is why junkies that use needles have to work carefully to get a vein.
It's possible, but far more likely it was injected into a muscle. Muscling speed, in this case glass/ice would be excruciatingly painful. Again, if you don't believe me try it sometime. Muscling an opiate is done often for junkies that run out of usable veins because it works as an anesthetic. But the reaction of someone having just muscled ice would not have put him in the catatonic/paralysis type state he was in. Instead he would have yelled at the top of his lungs in agony.
Again, of course there's the slight chance it did hit a vein or artery, but even then it's hard to see the person becoming completely comatose without first yelling out in agony before suffering the rest of the hit like he was hit with a paralytic like used in lethal injections like Pancuronium.
Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they are only stupid.
- Kin Hubbard