אמריקאי מת'

In this even-handed exposי, former broadcast journalist Justin Hunt
examines meth use throughout the Western US, traveling from Portland,
OR to Roswell, N.M., and a number of blue-collar stops in between.
Narrated by Val Kilmer, who played a meth-addicted musician in 2002's
The Salton Sea, the director backtracks to the birth of amphetamine
in the late-1800s, which leads to methamphetamine in the early-1990s
before returning to the present (as fellow New Mexico resident Kilmer
notes, Adolf Hitler was a regular user). For the most part, Hunt
focuses on addicts, police officers, politicians, health providers,
and social workers. As one man, who lost a friend to the drug,
poetically laments, "It's the devil's serum, and it leads you nowhere
but into hell." Kalispell Police Chief Frank Garner agrees. As he
puts it, "There is nothing good to say about it, and all the bad
stuff you've heard is true." He adds that meth is "worse than all
the other things I've seen come before it." Hunt concludes by spending
two weeks with James and Holly, a New Mexico couple battling addiction
while raising four children. Funded in part by Hunt's non-profit
American Meth Education Foundation and shot over 16 months, American
Meth feels like the work of a first-time filmmaker. It moves quickly
in the beginning, but the pace slows once James and Holly enter the
picture. Still, Hunt's debut offers an eye-opening look at a serious
issue. In addition, songs from the soundtrack are available on a
separate CD.