Bobby G. Can't Swim

Bobby G. Can't Swim is a 1999 crime drama film which was directed by, written by, and starred John-Luke Montias.^[1] It is the story of a small time drug-dealer in New York City.

Plot summary

Bobby G. (Bobby Grace) is a small-time cocaine dealer struggling to make a living. He lives in Hells Kitchen with his Puerto Rican girlfriend, Lucy, who works as a prostitute. Bobby has good friends, but he is repeatedly pestered by a pair of undercover cops. His girlfriend Lucy wants to go back to Puerto Rico to visit her mother, but Bobby says he won't come with her.

Bobby is approached by a car with four young suburban men who are interested in buying a kilo of cocaine, and they ask him what the price would be. Bobby G sees this as his one chance to make a substantial sum of money, so he tries to set up a sale which would net him ten thousand dollars over the wholesale price of $30,000.

Bobby tells the young men to give him the money first, so he can then go buy the cocaine from his dealer, but the young men eventually chicken out and insist that he show them the cocaine before they hand over the money. Bobby has to persuade the dealer to give him the cocaine without the money, a very risky proposition as the dealer will kill him if he fails to bring the money back. However, walking away with the drugs, Bobby is intercepted by the two plainclothes cops. He quickly hides the yellow plastic bag in a trash barrel and keeps walking. The cops drive off after a couple of blocks, but when Bobby runs back to the trash barrel, the yellow bag is missing.

Bobby is desperate to pay the huge sum he owes to his dealer. He asks someone he knows, and is set up with a meeting with a mobster who needs a hitman. Bobby is to shoot a black guy in a white sedan parked by the river and do it without killing the guy's girlfriend. Bobby does as instructed, and throws the gun into the river, but when he runs back to get paid, the mobster and the car are long gone.

Bobby is now completely at his wits end, having committed murder and still having no money to pay back his dealer, who will kill him. Bobby roams around in an agonized daze. He curls up crying on an old quilt outside the basement of a building, where a homeless black woman silently offers to share her food with him.

Bobby G can't swim, and is scared to go near the water. However, having had enough agony, he runs down a pier and throws himself into the river, hoping to drown. He floats instead of sinking, and is rescued.

Walking again, Bobby runs into his blind friend Popeet, who lives by selling stuff he finds on the street. Bobby is amazed to see that the yellow bag with the cocaine is one of the items Popeet has for sale for a dollar. Bobby takes the cocaine to the suburban men, who give him the money, from which he takes his cut and then pays off his dealer.

Bobby gives both Popeet and the homeless black lady a stack of money, and then he runs home to tell Lucy that he will go to Puerto Rico with her after all. They attempt to catch a cab to the airport. Bobby walks around the corner into the side street to increase their chances of getting a cab. Here he is challenged by two young black men, and when they confirm he is indeed Bobby G, he is shot to death.

Lucy flags down a cab and runs to tell Bobby that they are all set now.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 70% rating. Some reviewers liked the film, but others were lukewarm about it.^[2] Variety described the film as, "gutsy, unconventional, bursting with raw urban energy".^[3]

The film won both the "Best New Director" award and the "New Directions" award at the 1999 AFI International Film Festival.

References