Crime is no game for amateurs.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director: Mark L. Lester
Role: Eva
Cast: Judd Nelson, Louis Mandylor, Sandra Vidal, Deborah Zoe, Charlie Schlatter, Taylor Sheridan, James Pickens Jr.
Release Date: U.S., May 18 2003 (theatrical)
MPAA Motion Picture Rating: R

• Overview
• Memorable Eva Quotations
• Said of White Rush
• White Rush Movie Trivia
• Critical Reception
• White Rush Online

More White Rush images of Tricia in our White Rush Photo Gallery

When a drug deal goes sour and accidentally leaves a million dollars cash and a cool $6 million worth of cocaine in the hands of five friends, they each see something different. Beat officer Bill “Chick” Cicciolino (Mandylor) sees a chance to set up a street dealer and land himself a job with the DEA. Teacher Jay (Schlatter) and wife Arlene (Zoe) just want to make a fast buck whilst Eva, a recovering addict, sees the drugs as a one-way ticket back to the hell she just escaped. Commodities broker Douglas “Tug” McKann (Sheridan) just sees the money-spinning deal of the century.

What none of them see is that one of the dealers is still alive and he needs his money and cocaine back before his impatient Mexican supplier sets lethal lady assassin Solange (Vidal) on his trail. Now there are some professional players after the prize, the stakes are even higher. Chick and his pals are going to have to learn a difficult lesson fast if they’re going to survive…

* * * *

Tricia Helfer portrays Eva, Tug’s girlfriend with a history of drug abuse. When the others decide to take the drugs and run with them, Eva is the only one to oppose the dangerous plan, and flees from the campsite right into the arms of Brian (Nelson), the only surviving drug dealer. Coerced and threatened, Eva (a trained nurse) cares for the wounded Brian and assists him in finding the others and the missing coke.

[to Doug while browsing a photo album] “You guys have been making this trip for 10 years and you seem to have a different girl every time. Who’s the punk redhead with the spiked hair? She doesn’t look like the outdoor type.”

“You’re not thinking of keeping that stuff? Somebody just got killed for it, isn’t that what you said?”
[Chick: "We don't have time for this right now, Eva."]
“Oh my God, I can’t believe this. I’m not gonna be part of some illegal deal!”
[Tug: "Hey hey hey, nobody said anything about anything illegal, okay?"]
“Why don’t we talk to the agents if we’re not doing anything illegal?”
[Chick: "You wanna be held as a material witness? What we gotta do right now is go somewhere safe and figure this thing out together."]
“This stuff ruined my life once, I know this stuff! I am not gonna be part of any of this anymore!”
[Tug: "Come on, baby, you're going off the deep end here. Act like an adult. For five minutes, okay?"]
[Chick: "Wait a minute, wait a minute. If you want out, that's fine. But what we're gonna do from now on is none of your business. Tell me something. Wasn't your brother gonna do 10 to 20? Cocaine possession and intent? Tug calls me up, he asks me to pull some strings? I tell you this, you say anything to anyone I will reopen this case so fast your baby brother will spend the best part of his life behind bars. Are you with me?"]
“You make your own decisions. I’m not gonna say anything to anybody, but I’m NOT gonna be part of this!”

[Denny: "How did you end up in all this business?"]
“An innocent bystander.”
[Denny: "Yeah, that can be very dangerous."]
“You don’t have to tell me.”

“This is real surgical thread. You’re prepared, aren’t you?”
[Denny: "Yeah, in this place you better have everything on hand."]
“Yeah, and everybody has a gun.”
[Denny: "Everybody in Brian's business. But that's not what I'm about."]
“So what do you do?”
[Denny: "Provide a safe place for friends in trouble."]
“Like Brian… You probably have a lot of guests.”

[Denny: "Look, you look like you could use a shower and something to eat. You'll become addicted to my cooking."]
“Another addiction. That’s just what I need.”

“So I’m still kidnapped, I’m just walking around.”

“What the hell do you want?”
[Chick: "I've come to share with you some bad news about Tug."]
“What about him?”
[Chick: "Did you talk to anyone about our little adventure in the woods, Eva?"]
“WHAT — ABOUT — TUG?”
[Chick: "Tug's dead, honey."]
“You come here to tell me these horrible things just to hurt me. I don’t think Tug’s dead at all!”

“Go ahead and shoot. At this point, I don’t really care.”

“My friends got the drugs and I didn’t want any more to do with them. I wanted to do the right thing and it didn’t mean shit!”

“I’m forgetting who you are! How do I know this isn’t more lies to get at the drugs?”

“Tug McKann, please. I don’t want his voicemail, let me speak to the office manager.”
[Office Manager: "Uh, mam, Doug McKann died today."]
“Oh, Jesus…”

So what happens now, do you shoot everybody?”
[Brian: "You know better than that."]
“Am I still your prisoner?”
[Brian: "No. Now you're just an interested party. Look, Eva, I'm sorry how this all happened to you, but you did the right thing. Now you can go back to your old life, as if none of this had happened."]
“No, I can’t. I don’t know what I’m gonna do but it’s not gonna be my old life.”

“Come on in, you can tell me the story of your life. The real one.”

Select quotations regarding the film from Tricia Helfer and her co-workers:

On the filming experience:
“I’d really love to play a character that’s not based on looks. I did a film — White Rush — where my character was out camping for a week. In one scene she has to run through trees and everything, and the makeup people are putting on lipstick and curling my hair, and I’m like, ‘Hello? Rough me up! I’ve been camping.’ And they’re like, ‘But it’s film, darling. You have to look good.’ I want to do a role where it’s realistic, where you wake up in the morning looking like you look when you wake up in the morning.”
- Toro (Ca) interview, May 2004

Trivia coming soon/not available.

Review data coming soon/not available.

• Rating > Internet Movie Database: 4.6/10 (150 user votes counted)
• Rating > MetaCritic: No rating (professional)
• Rating > Rotten Tomatoes: No rating (professional)

Awards & Nominations

White Rush has won a total of 3 awards.

Awards:
• New York International Independent Film & Video Festival Feature Film Award (2003) — Best Actor (Louis Mandylor)
• New York International Independent Film & Video Festival Feature Film Award (2003) — Best Director
• New York International Independent Film & Video Festival Grand Jury Prize (2003) — Best Feature Film

Personal Thoughts

Sandra: I don’t really get how this movie could’ve won three awards, because there’s really nothing about White Rush that says “award-winning film”. It’s certainly not the worst movie I’ve seen, just a standard B-rate thriller which plays around with a little bit of everything, and is best suited for late night TV. The early minutes start off promisingly well, but the movie soon shrinks into an ordinary, predictable and silly “thriller” (though Louis Mandylor is pretty decent in an otherwise dumb role). Watchable, but forgettable.

As Eva, Tricia is okay, and the movie definitely serves as a great look at her earliest acting roles (actually, for her first ever film role she gets a surprisingly decent share of screen time), but as a character Eva is neither particularly interesting nor realistic (the same which really goes for all the film’s females). Except for a few lines establishing the fact, there’s nothing about Eva that says “former drug addict”, and yet at the same time, while Eva stays pretty much the same throughout the film, the way all the other characters keep swinging from relatable to scumbags is just as implausible as Eva is as a drug abuser. Not a very interesting film or role, all in all.

Below are some White Rush-related links that may be of interest to you.

• White Rush official site
• White Rush TFL-approved fanlisting
• White Rush TFL-approved Eva character fanlisting
• White Rush on IMDb.com
• White Rush on RottenTomatoes.com
• White Rush on Wikipedia.org

• Mark L. Lester on IMDb.com
• Mark L. Lester on Wikipedia.org

• Louis Mandylor on LouisMandylor.com