Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland

Name: Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland
Genre: Documentary
Released: June 8, 2011
Duration: 84 min
Rating: 45

2011

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Mixed or average reviews based on 4 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

GoDigital Media Group | Release Date: June 8, 2011 | Not Rated

Summary: Reindeerspotting is a documentary film of a group of young guys living in Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle, dabbling in petty crime and hard drugs. One of them, Jani, has lost five years of his life and two fingers to his lifestyle. He wants to leave Lapland and his old life behind. Robbing a supermarket is a start for his getaway. A few years backReindeerspotting is a documentary film of a group of young guys living in Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle, dabbling in petty crime and hard drugs. One of them, Jani, has lost five years of his life and two fingers to his lifestyle. He wants to leave Lapland and his old life behind. Robbing a supermarket is a start for his getaway. A few years back a documentary film-maker, Joonas Neuvonen, was a young men living on social welfare, using drugs on daily basis. He started to film his friends and their life. This is the story of Jani. (Bronson Club)… Expand

Director: Joonas Neuvonen

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 84 min

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Critic Reviews

David Fear

Jun 7, 2011

While it never hits the gritty heights of you-are-there junky journalism à la Larry Clark's "Tulsa," you still feel as if you've personally toured the abyss. Read full review

John Anderson

Jun 7, 2011

With an obvious nod to "Trainspotting," Joonas Neuvonen's junkie documentary Reindeerspotting combines the greasy immediacy of that Danny Boyle parable, the naked candor of Larry Clark's "Tulsa" and the laconic poetry of William S. Burroughs' "Junkie." Read full review

Mike Hale

Jun 9, 2011

It's also a pretty familiar story, and "Reindeer," despite Mr. Neuvonen's verve and Jani's charisma, can drag. Like a lot of addiction stories, it starts to mirror the monotony and self-absorption of the addict's life. Read full review

Michael Atkinson

Jun 7, 2011

Mostly pathetic but on occasion grimly funny. Read full review

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wombatvegitable

Dec 6, 2012

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Drug addiction sucks, I know this well. So does this movie, pretty much! I did however find it kind of interesting at points, and I also take some issue with the way the movie makers, and the kids give miss info(from my understanding) about some of the drugs. While I have some things to say about the film, I think it needs to be said right off the bat that the way they cover the kids drug usage is sloppy and incorrect at times. Having been a recovering addict for a couple years now, I am perscribed subutex in the states, and am on a slow tapper that I am comforitable with. It's worked for me very well and I haven't gone back to the hard stuff ever. I am never high, or do I feel what I would call high. There is some minor effects, like lessening of anxiety for me. Certainly when taking large amounts it can knock you out. but it makes you brain dead in a way that isn't fun, not like taking real opiates which is any opiate addicts happy place. One of my issues is that In the movie they suggest diazapam(valuem) and other drugs are substitutes for an opiate addicted person, or someone taking subutex. I doesn't seem that the film makers are aware that these things are not interchangeable! You can take as much valum as you want, but it's not gonna stop opiate withdrawls! If you are taking Subutex, or bubenorphine, you have to stay in the opiate family, and you cant be switching back and forth freely from Codine, or Heroine, then back to subutex willy nilly. You'd have to withdrawl first, or basically you turn retarded. I think early in the movie the kid isn't fully addicted and is just using anything and everything he gets his hands on. Later as they travel I think he gets his hands on enough Suboxone, that he does then get him self addicted. People should know that suboxone can be a valuable treatment for addiction, and these kids were just being dumb kids and taking what was around. I do wonder if they didn't have other opiates around, cause thats usually where the addiction starts. If subutex was all they had, then ok... But it does make for a backwards story and missinformation. It sucks to see these uninformed kids doing stupid **** like shooting up the medication which a quick goolge search will tell you is not the way to get the best effect from subutex at all. It kicks in slower but lasts longer when taken sublingually. Messing with the dossage of subutex will really **** up your head. Staying at a lower dosage is better, for every reason. even the ones an addict are looking for, and once at a certain dosage you need to stay or your brain will hurt.

Now about the movie. The main kid is so young, he's hard to listen to. And comes off as very self interested. We all went to school with some guys like this, or maybe you were a guy like this. Me, kinda... He just doesn't stop getting ****ed up, half cause he can't and he's an addict, half cause he's an young dumb idiot afraid of the real world. There are some truly scary parts of this movie, which were the interesting bits in my opinion. At one point one of the kids takes a needle out of the trash, wondering if it's his or not, and says **** it i'll just use it cause I gotta get high... This is why suboxone can be a maricle drug, it will get a person away from those sorts of life threatening impulses. At one point one of the idiot kids is climbing on a balcony and falls like 2 floors down on his face and is taken away! They never say what happened to the kid, they never bring it up at all, just ****ty film making right there. Also the film makers mess with the audience early on saying Jani the young kid gets his fingers cut off, they never show that, and you see him with all of his fingers through the entire movie. What else are they bull****ting about. You get the feeling pretty early on in the film that this kid is entertaining a romantic view of being a drug user. He plays it up for the camera, and it seems like he's pushing it for that reason. When your partying and your young, you don't realize how stupid you look, infact you think you look really cool. And these guys do a lot of that kind of stuff, where you just want to reach in there and slap the stupid out of them. Other than that these guys are normal goofy looking, very young, stoner kids trying to find their way. Like I said the movie is interesting, but you really do want to punch the kid they follow around. It mostly comes down to watching a bunch of dumb ass stoner dudes trying real hard to be cool. There is some truth to the reality that addiction in our modern world is everywhere. It effects good people, very young kids still finding their way, and people you would never expect. Addiction sucks, and education can help... It's not going away...

Drugs are bad, mmmmkay. Thats my ramble.. Had to write it.… Expand

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