By Hook or By Crook is an odd little movie, but in the best sense of the word--it has a magnetism that is difficult to explain, and a plot that is difficult to categorize. It's a buddy movie about the friendship between two gender-ambiguous characters, but it's also an indictment of how we treat the mentally ill in our society; it's a love story, but it's also a story about fear and injustice.

The movie tells the story of Shy (played by Silas Howard) who hits the road in search of adventure and money and meets Valentine (played by Harry Dodge), and then Valentine's lover Billie (played by Stanya Kahn). While doing some research for Val at a local courthouse, Shy also meets Isabelle (Carina Gia), with whom she begins an affair.

Meanwhile Shy and Val are making plans for a bank robbery, since they are convinced that is the way to make some real money, but a run-in with the law puts these plans on hold when Val's life is jeopardized and Shy has to come to the rescue.

This summary doesn't really adequately describe the movie, however, since so much of the essence of By Hook or By Crook has nothing to do with the actual events but simply the characters themselves and their interactions. Dodge is brilliant as Val, who has one foot in this world and the other foot in her own, and Howard's Shy is equally convincing, especially playing off Val's quirky patter. Both Kahn and Gia are excellent, tool--in fact, the acting in this film is so well done across the board that it feels like watching a documentary at times.

Where the film breaks down a bit is in the pacing, which is a bit slow in parts, and the lighting, which is sometimes too dark. It also takes awhile to really get attached to the characters, perhaps because so much of the character development is subtextual rather than textual.

But at some point about halfway into the movie, something shifts and you find yourself really interested in these characters and their lives. And this is where By Hook or By Crook really excels: in intersecting these four scattered lives and letting the sparks fly, fade to an ember, and then fly again as the characters become intimately involved in each other's lives.

The whole is truly larger than the sum of its parts in this film, and the ability to deftly communicate this lesson is what ultimately makes By Hook or By Crook such a powerful movie.