Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

My impromptu Jason Patric retrospective did carry me back to "Narc" (2002) in which Patric and Ray Liotta were both excellent., That movie has been properly appreciated on Epinions, particularly by DeadMilkBoy who wrote everthing I might have said (and more) about it.

The 2007 "Expired" did not have much of a theatrical run and is seemingly only available on DVD as a Blockbuster Exclusive. In it, Jason Patric's character, Jay, is several steps lower in the law enforcement hierarchy, a parking control officer ("meter maid"), though less burned out than in "Narc" or "Rush." In fact, Jay is more like the very nasty user of women Cary, the role Patric played in Neil LaBrute's (1998) "Your Friends and Neighbors," albeit at a considerably lower socioeconomic level (Cary was a physician).

It is obvious that, unlike, say Marlon Brando or John Wayne (but like Henry Fonda) Patric is not afraid to play acutely unlikable characters. Jay is as narcissistic as Cary was, and as wince-inducingly nasty to the woman he woos (fellow parking control officer Claire, played  by Samantha Morton, who has been emotionally battered before — by Sean Penn in "Sweet and Lowdown" for one), but is so schizoid that one can feel that he is mentally ill, not just an arrogant, narcissistic jerk — that is, less capable of self-management than Cary. Still plenty manipulative, though!

The shy but warmhearted Claire, who devotes most of her off-duty time caring for her mother (Teri Garr) who has a series of strokes, deserves a lot better than Jay, but no one else of the male species pas her any attention. She is a bit (just a bit) plump and does not dress at all glamorously. (It must say something about her taste and/or low self-esteem that she looks better in uniform than in what she dons when off-duty!) She looks better than Ernest Borgnine did in "Marty" (faint praise, I realize!) but her character resembles his in being a nice person who does not score well in the rating game that establishes who can play the dating game. (Marty finds someone who will make his life better; Claire finds someone who exacerbates her loneliness in a toxic relationship.)

Claire is something of a sad-sack wallflower, though she does not mope. She is ripe for an abusive relationship. And Jay is just the person to give her one. His selfishness in bed is impressive (though he has at least heard of female orgasms). Patric turns Jay from romantic to cutting on less than a dime (turns on a penny?). One of m favorite Motown songs has Smokey Robinson singing "You only build be up to tear me down — down, down." I don't recall such lack of transition between the two as in Jay. In one scene, as soon as he ejaculates, he suggests that Claire would not look half-bad if she had her teeth whitened and lost a few pounds.

She obviously would like some post-coital snuggling (especially since the only orgasms are his), but falling immediately to sleep would be better than the brutal criticisms she receives.

On the job, he is very aggressive, savoring getting a ticket on the windshield as the driver is rushing to get back. He writes a lot of tickets, but also has a lot of altercations. In contrast, Claire gives drivers a break and is nice to everyone. Also, she does not appropriate an official vehicle for a weekend trip (to Pomona).

Claire is not especially comfortable in her body — and a romance with Jay would make most anyone even less so. There is something spaced out about her, so that even very cruel blows sort of glance off her, even when she winces, registering the insults. Claire needs a measure of obliviousness to survive her loneliness, her mother's physical deterioration, and the hatred for meter maids.

Jay should be insufferable and does loathsome things, but is in at least as much pain as he dispenses (cold comfort for those to whom he inflicts it, I know!). His family expected him to be a doctor (like Cary, heaven help the patients!). His interest was in cosmology and he was a graduate student in astrophysics at Berkeley who dropped out and cannot even do a low-status (and reviled) job very well. I haven't mentioned that his primary interaction others than "nah-nah-nah"ing those whom he has ticketed are phone sex and Internet porn (presumably his "partners" in phone sex are better trained to deal with his hanging up the moment he ejaculates than the very inexperienced Claire). He wants to be loved, too, and can simulate romantic gestures, but is not just unlovable, but could charitably be called a boyfriend from hell. (Patric does not stint when he plays a__holes! And writer/director Ceclia Miniucchi definitely stacks the deck with pathos and kitschy home decoration for Claire and heavy consumption of somewhat sadistic online porn for Jay.)

In sum, Patric and Morton are excellent, though his character's treatment of hers makes me cringe more than laugh. I admire the resiliency she has, even if it requires not just obliviousness but dissociation that at least borders on pyschopathology. (Jay exists across the border, if, perhaps, more a sociopath than a psychopath, though somewhere in the bipolar/schizoid territory. with what is euphemized as "anger issues.")

©  2009, Stephen O. Murray


In addition to Rush, and Your Friends and Neighbors, my Patric retrospective has included reviews of The Beast (Patric does not play the title role in that!), After Dark, My Sweet, and  Incognito. In these three movies, he is likable (and damaged as is the character he plays in "Rush," not unlikable there.)

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD