EDITOR'S NOTE: Like almost every horror film today that's helmed by an iconic horror director but doesn't star teenagers, Stuart Gordon's STUCK is receiving only a limited theatrical release, so if you're interested, and it opens near you, see it fast.

So you think you've had bad days? Be thankful you're not the guy in Stuart Gordon's new movie, STUCK.

Tom (Stephen Rea, probably most famous for his role in THE CRYING GAME) starts the day off by getting kicked out of his apartment because he owes too much back rent. Then he goes to the employment office for his big job interview, and they've lost his paperwork ("If you're not in the computer, I can't help you.") When he goes to the park to get some sleep, a cop shakes him awake and tells him he has to move on or he'll run him in. Tom puts his remaining possessions (some clothes he was able to get away with) in a shopping cart he got from a homeless man named Sam (Lionel Mark Smith) - the only person in the film who is actually nice to him - and wanders the city's streets at night.

Meanwhile, Brandi (Mena Suvari, best known as the rose petal girl in AMERICAN BEAUTY, and here looking especially nice sporting corn rows), a nurse's assistant at a retirement home, is trying to get through life. She finds out that she is in line for a promotion at work, but in order to get it, she has to kowtow to her strict boss and work extra shifts. This, however, doesn't mean she can't have some fun. Even though she has to work a Saturday morning shift, Brandi goes out clubbing on Friday night with her friend and co-worker Tanya (Rukiya Bernard), and meets up with her drug dealer boyfriend Rashid (Russell Hornsby). After popping some pills and dancing the night away, Brandi arranges to meet Rashid back at her place, but he has an errand to do on the way, so they take separate vehicles.

While driving home, high and trying to call Rashid on her cell phone, Brandi's life collides with poor Tom's, literally, when she hits him with her car. But that's not the end of the story, that's just the beginning. Because Tom hurtles into her windshield and gets stuck there, bleeding and moaning.

Brandi panics and has no idea what to do. She considers dumping him off in front of a hospital, but she can't pull him out of the windshield, and she's terrified that if she sticks around and someone sees her, she'll be arrested. So she ends up driving home and putting her car in her garage, where Tom is a prisoner, trapped in glass. She then waits for him to die.

If this sounds a little familiar, it's because it's based on a real life news story from a few years back, and uses the basic idea as a jumping off point. I'm quite sure the entire story didn't go this way, though.

A lot of readers will know director Stuart Gordon as the man who gave us the horror classic RE-ANIMATOR. His more recent films have straddled a line between art and horror. His last film EDMOND, was based on a David Mamet play and featured William H. Macy as an angry racist who goes on a violence binge. Here, Gordon takes some talented actors and an old news story, and has some fun with them.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't expecting much from STUCK. Its plot is pretty thin, and amounts mostly to waiting around for Tom to die. But the thing is, he won't go away so easily. When Brandi calls a cab to go to work the next morning, Tom beeps her horn constantly, so that that she has to "take care" of him, using a two-by-four. He struggles to wrench himself out of the jagged hole he's in while she's gone, and the son of some illegal immigrant neighbors finds him, but his parents won't call the police because they are afraid of getting deported.

As this goes on and Tom won't have the decency to just die and get it over with, Brandi turns to her boyfriend Rashid to "clean things up." At first he tells her he's killed people before, but when faced with the reality of shooting someone, we find that Rashid is not as hardcore as he pretends to be. And Tom won't go out without a fight.

STUCK is a lot more enjoyable than it deserves to be. The cast does a fine job (although it is sad to see former A-list actor Rea reduced to a mostly thankless victim role), and Gordon milks more out of his plot than I thought he'd be capable of. But then again, I should have known better. Since RE-ANIMATOR, which was an amazing debut and one of my favorite horror films, Gordon's output has been pretty uneven, from above-average genre films (FROM BEYOND, KING OF THE ANTS) to lesser efforts like the Christopher Lambert actioner FORTRESS. But even his weakest films are very watchable. He doesn't know how to make a boring film, and STUCK just reinforces that. And the movie does a good job of ratcheting up the suspense throughout, as we really wonder how all this is going to end.

There are some lapses of logic however, from the fact that Tom shouldn't have much strength left after his injuries and loss of blood, to the fact that 9-1-1 should be able to trace a call he makes when he finds the cell phone Brandi left in her car (can't they trace cell phones?) A lot about STUCK doesn't seem very plausible after the final credits roll, but while you're actually watching it, it's easy enough to suspend disbelief, and it's a pleasant enough diversion for 90 minutes.

There are even some funny moments, including a scene where Brandi goes to Rashid's apartment and finds him in bed with another woman. Even though she is freaking out about the man stuck in her windshield, and desperately needs help, she takes some time out to kick the other woman's ass, throwing her around Rashid's kitchen and even hitting her with a frying pan to the face, before throwing her naked butt out into the hallway.

And another scene where a neighbor's prissy little dog gets into Brandi's garage and starts nibbling on the raw meat of Tom's injured leg might make you chuckle a bit, in between winces.

All in all, it's amazing that this little film got a theatrical release at all, however brief. But for most people, it's probably more suitable as a DVD rental down the line.