It raises an interesting question - what would you do if you found out one of your best friends from grade school was homeless and insane ten years later? That's what happens to Stan (Rick Stear) and Daniel (Jon Cryer). They find out their friend Richie (Rafael Baez), the guy who taught them how to get babes in their childhood, is living somewhere in the deserted Coney Island amusement park after disappearing about a year after high school, penniless and mentally ill. So Stan, not being all that busy himself, since he's an alcohoic fuckup in general, drags Daniel out of work at the pawn shop and they go on a mission to find him and try to help him if they can. It's also supposedly based on a true story, which probably explains the subdued pace of it all - a monumental event like this in ordinary lives, that forces the two of them to realize how close to being in Richie's position they could be.

It's a reminder that all it takes is a rotten roll of the dice for things to go horribly wrong for a person. A handful of really bad, confusing things hitting all at once can just shatter human beings for a good long while, enough to start sleepwalking through the rest of their lives... homeless or just robot-like through the motions of existence. Stear does a good job playing the couple-wrong-decisions-away-from-Richie's-life Stan, who managed to blow a relationship with Ione Skye that lasted since high school and, although I haven't seen him in much, I can't remember not really liking Cryer - save for those 1-800 COLLECT commercials with Adam Carolla. Frank Whaley shows up as an anal skee-ball clerk, which allows Stear to deliver the funniest line of the film - his hard delivery of "NOTHING YOU SAY MATTERS TO ME!" That just struck me as hilarious.

It's a bit meandering at times, and some of the attempts at comedy are dull or overlong, but the basic storyline is an involving one, if a little predictable. What does it take for people to stop ignoring a homeless guy and try to help him out? Will he even accept your help if you try to do more than give him money? If he accepts your help, will it take, or will he revert back to form no matter how much effort you put into it? It's something a lot of people have wrestled with, and more often than not, the road taken is the one that doesn't require effort. Myself included. The world's full of jackasses.