MOVIE REVIEW : Hard-Edged ‘Laws of Gravity’ Downbeat, Gripping : The volatile, verbal film, set among the petty hoodlums of Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, is American independent filmmaking at its best.

“Laws of Gravity” is a black diamond of a film, hard-edged and compelling, a remarkably accomplished piece of work that knows exactly what it wants to do and then goes out and does it. Volatile, verbal and streetwise, it neither complains nor explains. It simply puts a world on display and dares you to be indifferent to it.

Set among the petty hoodlums and junior-grade hard guys of Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, “Laws of Gravity” (at the Nuart) is American independent filmmaking at its very best. It is a first feature not only for its 29-year-old writer-director, Nick Gomez, but also for most of its cast, and its $38,000 budget is threadbare by any standard. Yet its ability to convey emotion and experience couldn’t be improved on no matter what the cost.

The center of “Gravity” is Jimmy (Peter Green), a lean, goateed small-time street outlaw who earns whatever living he can by lifting goods off of unguarded vans and selling the loot to a convenient fence. Married to Denise (Edie Falco), a waitress at the neighborhood bar, Jimmy, while horrified at the thought of actual work, is stable by local standards, content to stay in the mildly criminal grooves his life has marked out for him so far.

Jon (Adam Trese) is another story. The original hothead, with a temper that is always a wink away from erupting, he is a natural-born troublemaker who explodes first and thinks about it later, if he thinks about it at all. Almost no one can stand Jonny Boy for long, including his off-again, on-again girlfriend, Celia (Arabella Field). No one, that is, except Jimmy, who improbably considers Jon his protege and junior partner in misbehavior.

Into this unstable friendship comes the amiably sinister Frankie (Paul Schulze), an old friend who fled to Florida to escape a stretch on Riker’s Island. Now he’s back, traveling in a stolen car with a bag full of illegal firearms in the trunk. Selling them on the street and making a sweet profit soon becomes the focus of everyone’s attention, and the catalyst for “Gravity’s” climactic action.

Though its plot is certainly sufficient, “Laws of Gravity” (rated R for pervasive strong language) is episodic by nature and its real success is in the way it replicates the texture of this low-rent criminal environment, where “ratting someone out” is the ultimate sin and its OK to smack your old lady around if you do it at home and keep the agony off the streets.

Gomez’s script and the improvisations his tuned-in actors have worked off it perfectly captures the sense of these violent, haphazard lives. Not only does the often funny, always in-your-face dialogue ring brutally true, but the film understands from the inside the strutting cockiness of its characters, as well as how haunted their lives are under all that bravado.

Though the actors all perform beautifully, an argument could be made that the real star of this film is the exceptional cinema verite camera work of Jean de Segonzac, a veteran documentary cinematographer whose credits include the Oscar-winning “Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt.”

Darting in and out of groups, elegantly eavesdropping on private conversations, De Segonzac’s camera manages to be unobtrusive and pivotal at the same time. It underlines the immediacy that is one of this film’s strongest virtues, and is critical in making “Laws of Gravity,” despite its downbeat situations, into a gripping cinematic experience.

‘Laws of Gravity’

Peter Greene: Jimmy

Edie Falco: Denise

Adam Trese: Jon

Arabella Field: Celia

Paul Schulze: Frankie

Saul Stein: Sal

Released by RKO Pictures. Director Nick Gomez. Producers Bob Gosse, Larry Meistrich. Executive producer Larry Meistrich. Screenplay Nick Gomez. Cinematographer Jean de Segonzac. Editor Tom McArdle. Production design Monica Bretherton. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (pervasive strong language).