LINCOLN SQUARE — The Davis Theater is rolling out the red carpet Tuesday for the Chicago premiere of a new comedy with a cast that includes former Chicago Bears player Israel Idonije.
“Oxy Morons” is the comedic tale of harried logistics company employee Wayne Poss (Jeremy Sumpter) as he and friends steal, smuggle and sell opioids from the United State’s biggest pharmaceutical company.
Their chaotic, half-baked drug-smuggling scheme — at one point a homemade submarine is launched into Lake Michigan — runs into increasing complications as the cops close in on the amateur crew while they try to pay off escalating debts.
The film’s first theatrical screening will be 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Davis Theater, 4614 N. Lincoln Ave. at a private premiere event. It will be available Tuesday on streaming platforms and on demand.
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The indie film was shot over 20 days in 2022 for less than $1 million and it features Chicago talent both in front of and behind the camera, said director Sarah Cayce.
“This is some scrappy Chicago ingenuity,” Cayce said. “This was: We knew some people, who knew some people, who knew some people. That’s what happened with the casting, that’s what happened with these locations.”
Cayce has a background as a casting director and lives in Lincoln Square. Her network of Chicago connections helped recruit talent, scout locations and generally plan the tight-but-flexible filming schedule.
“Chicago is such a big city, and we shot throughout the city. We went way North Side and way South Side,” Cayce said.
The Davis Theater in Lincoln Square on Aug. 11, 2021. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
Cayce moved to Chicago more than a decade ago from Oklahoma. When she’s not working on a production in the city, she likes to explore Chicago’s culinary scene.
“I traveled around a ton when I first moved here. With film you have to. You’re everywhere. And I was always figuring out the best neighborhoods,” she said. “And being a big Vivian Maier fan, the photographer, I was always just peeping areas. Truly, I’ve just always felt a bit like a little weird food anthropologist as I’ve gone around town.”
That familiarity with the city gave the cast and crew insight in to small details for the heist film, like how much fake sweat to cover Sumpter in if his character is frantically riding his bike between O’Hare and Bucktown.
“How out of breath does he need to be by the time he gets to south Bucktown? And how would he get there quickly while using a rental bike?” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, he could totally get there that fast.’ There’s so many alleys.”
Grant Troyer, the film’s screenwriter, lives in Bucktown and his firsthand knowledge of the city — particularly its history as an international transit hub — was one of the reasons he decided to set his comedic heist in the Windy City.
“Let’s take a worker that works for a greedy, logistics corporation and have him start pilfering pills from a greedy pharmaceutical company. Where else are we going to do that?” Troyer said. “Chicago is one of the epicenters of transportation. You couldn’t really set this story anywhere but Chicago to make it work.”
The film satirizes corporate greed via the heist that Sumpter’s character comes up with.
“So let’s come up with with an absurd scam to highlight just how greedy and just reckless Big Pharma actually is,” Troyer said. In between the heist’s hijinks, the film takes viewers on a broad, comedic overview of how logistics and pharmaceutical companies operate, he said.
Rae Gray (left) and Jeremy Sumpter (right) star in the new indie comedy “Oxy Morons,” which drops Tuesday on streaming services. Credit: Provided.
Sara Sharp, a producer friend who Cayce had worked with before, suggested she pitch to direct the film because of the script’s satirical bent, Cayce said.
“I love punk rock. And I love sticking it to the man,” Cayce said. “And my favorite stand-up comics are talking about real stuff, but they’re doing it through big laughs.
“[So] this production was a grungy, punk rock story. Because we worked our butt off,” she continued. “We actually put a practical submarine — dude, they had electrical in it — and we kicked it into the lake.”
“Oxy Morons” production included the construction of a makeshift submarine that was launched into Lake Michigan. Credit: Provided.
At one point, the film features a “training tutorial” that apes the type of employee onboarding that happens at actual logistics companies use, Troyer said.
“It just shows how broken the system can be, sometimes. And in general how many hands are in the cookie jar. How something like this could happen,” he said.
The 2023 labor disputes within the film and television industries contributed to a delay in the film’s release. When a release date was finally set, Cayce said she advocated for having its premiere in Chicago, given the film’s many ties to the city.
“This is a Chicago story. That’s why we premiered it at the Davis. It would be very difficult to stand on business if I was like, ‘Yeah, and then we premiered it in Los Angeles with a bunch of people we didn’t know and our crew couldn’t go,’” Cayce said.
You can watch “Oxy Morons” starting Tuesday on major streaming services like AppleTV, Tubi, Redbox and Fandango.
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