An offbeat, ensemble comedy with a romantic heart at the center of a carnival of lost souls on a summer night in an almost deserted Athens. A young man without a past or a future waits for something to happen in the heart of a big city. A beautiful girl in a telephone booth has a terrible argument with her boyfriend over the phone. An old friend on the edge longs for his teenage love and screams out her name from his balcony. Two unrepentant middle-aged bachelors masterfully set up the eternal "trap" that will at last land them the babe. A coffee house owner recites poetry. A couple's eleven-year relationship is ridiculously challenged by a body-builder's presence. An American challenges Mohammed Ali to a boxing match as the final tribute to a boxer whom he considers as the ultimate dancer. Two mobsters trained in pressure tactics are "canceled out" under the comic burden of an absurd defeat. CHEAP SMOKES is like a game of poker where the players gradually reveal themselves. The characters and the stories change with the speed of a slot machine. Who wins in the end? The young man and the beautiful girl. As they wander together through the empty city on this summer night what they finally manage to do is discover each other. |