The Rubber Gun

The kids your mother never let you play with.

Charismatic painter Steve (Scanners star Stephen Lack) has carved out a reputation as Montréal’s premiere drug connection, trafficking narcotics with a crew of friends and lovers living as a makeshift “family” on the fringes of society. But tensions rise when the police catch wind of their latest shipment, and Steve strikes up a friendship with a university student eager to observe the group’s illicit lifestyle for his graduate thesis. As the walls start to close in, old jealousies and new paranoias surface, and the family scrambles to adapt or perish.    

Featuring seven songs by acclaimed Leonard Cohen collaborator Lewis Furey, the directorial debut of Allan Moyle (Times Square, Pump Up the Volume, Empire Records) is an innovative drug drama that set the stage for Drugstore Cowboy and other celebrated portraits of addiction. Equal parts Warhol and Cassavetes, the film’s docu-fiction approach earned widespread praise for its urgency and vivid reality, with The Toronto International Film Festival citing it as “one of the best films of the ’70s.” Out of official circulation for decades, The Rubber Gun returns in a stunning new restoration from the original camera negatives.