Award wining filmmaker? This was beyond bad. This mess of a film was slow, boring, long and a story that's been told many times before, but much better. The writing, directing and acting was horrible by Brian Metcalf. The only convincing role was Mikey Rourke. Very disappointed. Don't bother with this one.

Ethan (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is on parole and works as a ride share. He also has custody of his 16-year old sister Mia (Kelly Arjen) who is quite the hand full. She gets into trouble with the wrong people. Ethan must resort to his old ways.

Not sure how he got custody on parole. Plot had some wholes. Mickey Rourke has been making the rounds. This role is a long fall from grace for Sean Astin and Lou Diamond Phillips. It is a film you can pass on and not feel you have missed anything.

Guide: F-word. Brief nudity, No sex.

The virtues of a tire-iron as a lethal weapon are depicted with gusto in writer & director Brian A. Metcalf's "Adverse," a gritty but unforgettable Los Angeles crime thriller, co-starring Mickey Rourke, Lou Diamond Phillips, Sean Austin, and Matt Ryan. Savage as the violence is in this Darwinian underworld melodrama, swarming with the scum of the scum, it is commendably restrained and far more believable for that restraint. Nominally, Thomas Ian Nicholas of "American Pie" stars as a hard luck parolee with anger management issues. He struggles futilely to raise his sixteen-year-old, Hispanic half-sister in the aftermath of their mom's suicide.

Indeed, Ethan has more to contend with than most people. In terms of its seamy realism and its gallery of low-life degenerates, "Adverse" evokes memories of Martin Scorsese's classic "Taxi Driver" (1976),with Robert De Niro. Now, by no means an imposing fellow, Nicholas lacks De Niro's heroic stature. Comparably, Nicholas's Ethan is a pint-sized pug. He wears his dark unruly hair brushed back over his collar. He is at the end of his tether emotionally with its twine unraveling . . . until he picks up a tire-iron. Once he has gotten into the swing of things, Ethan isn't so trifling, and he can bring the Goliaths of the world to their knees. "Taxi Driver" amounted to a far richer film experience with ambiguity and irony. Meanwhile, "Adverse" is a little crooked, like Ethan's tire-iron, and his adversaries await him at every turn. Mickey Rourke is memorable as a notorious loan shark suffering from cancer. Matt Ryan, who starred in the short-lived Marvel television series "Constantine," is toxically obnoxious as Rourke's disgruntled partner. Nobody, however, overshadows Nicholas, and it's a treat to watch this fearless little feist stand up to his enemies and whip the living shenanigans out of them.

The quarrelsome relationship between Ethan and his half-sister fuels this tragic tale of redemption. Mia (newcomer Kelly Arjen) is sweet sixteen and cavorts with the wrong crowd. She'd rather take her boyfriend's abuse and get high than attend school. Ethan hates her cocaine snorting posse. Eventually, he discovers Mia and her decadent lothario, Lars (Jake T. Austin),owe $20 thousand to a junky drug dealer, Dante (Brian A. Metcalf),who cannot keep track of either his drugs or his collections. Meantime, poor Ethan, who keeps Mia and he solvent as a humble Uber-esque rideshare driver, has been suspended because his passengers have complained about his attitude. Everything changes when Ethan picks up Kaden (Mickey Rourke of "The Expendables") after midnight and gets him to his destination using his familiarity with all the short-cuts to get around traffic. Sufficiently impressed with Ethan's expertise as a driver, Kaden offers him a full-time job as his driver. As it turns out, Dante works for Kaden, and Kaden isn't happy with Dante's abysmal bookkeeping skills.

Meanwhile, Ethan convinces his pompous rideshare supervisor Frankie (Sean Austin of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) to cough up the $10 grand in back pay owed him. Ethan cuts a deal with Dante to clear Mia of her share of Lars' debt. Later, Kaden dispatches two bottom feeding thugs to extract from Dante what he owes Kaden. Furthermore, they insist on getting the names of those delinquent debtors. Initially, Dante refuses to give them Mia's name until they threaten to kill him. Imagine Ethan's shock when a pair of detectives usher him into the city morgue to identify Mia. They tell him that she died from a massive overdose and her arm is swollen purple with needle puncture wounds.

As Kaden's full-time driver now, Ethan soldiers on despite Mia's demise. He wins a sympathetic reprieve from his ill-tempered parole officer, Dr. Cruz (Lou Diamond Phillips of "Young Guns"),who sincerely wants to help him. Meantime, Ethan accompanies one of Kaden's lieutenants, Jake (Matt Ryan),out to collect a tavern owner's long-standing debt after the guy had skipped town. Jake wants to kill the barman, but Ethan brokers a deal between them. No sooner has Jake gotten a pittance out of the cash-strapped entrepreneur than he guns him down without a qualm. Jake reads Ethan the riot act. Debt collection is a kill or be killed racket. He explains that Kaden keeps murderous misfits on his payroll for that reason. Furthermore, he warns Ethan if he doesn't want to catch lead in the head, he had better be just as homicidal.

Eventually, Ethan finds himself chauffeuring two of Kaden's lethal debt collectors, Jan (Andrew Keegan of "April Rain") and Rick (Jason James of "Living Among Us"),around town. These stone-cold killers decide to get chummy with Ethan, and they brag openly about their exploits. Principally, they confess to him without knowing his identity that they killed Mia. Rick reveals they injected her with enough smack to boil her brains. Ethan has had enough of enough and brandishes that tire-iron to wreak vengeance on Kaden and his entire operation from top to bottom without a shred of mercy.

"Adverse" amounts to a poor man's "John Wick" as our genuinely charismatic hero finds himself behind an ominous 8-ball. He wields that tire-iron like a wizard, and nobody escapes his wrath. Mind you, this doesn't mean he has a picnic knocking off Kaden's army of goons. He encounters one Goliath who fends off blows from his tire-iron as if he were beating him repeatedly with a pool noodle. Mickey Rourke looks like an alien from another planet as Kaden, and he sports his own cane, smashing heads among his own crime syndicate when things go sideways. The final confrontation between Ethan and Kaden brings everything full circle. Altogether, Ethan winds up saving one of Mia's friends from death. Director Brian A. Metcalf not only wrote and directed this gripping revenge-themed crime drama, but he also co-stars as Dante, the slimy drug dealer. Watching Ethan crown his adversaries in the R-rated "Adverse" makes for a deliriously liberating experience that clocks in at 94 agile minutes.