The most poignant scene in the film Drugstore Cowboy arrives in the opening moments when a drug-addicted foursome uses some skillful maneuvers to steal drugs from the local drugstore. The scenes that follow lack the quality of this interesting opening (rarely in film do addicts rob drug stores though it would seem to be a preferred method of acquiring their drugs) and we are left with a paint by numbers movie about addicts and the lengths that they will go to to protect their habits.
What did Roger Ebert see in this film that I couldn't? In every scene with Kelly Lynch as Dianne I had an incredible desire to watch paint dry. It was almost as though the casting directors were looking for Juliette Lewis or Winona Ryder but somehow ended up with Kelly Lynch. I never once believed that Dianne and Matt Dillon as Bob were married because Kelly Lynch looked older and more mature than him. It seemed that she was more of a bad mother than a wife to him. Matt Dillon did his best with a fairly one-dimensional character but once again it was almost as though the role was designed for someone else and the directors got stuck with Dillon. Heather Graham found herself in the position of being forced to play the role of a pathetic teenage drifter so that she could write it on her resume and go on to bigger and better things in Boogie Nights. I couldn't help but believe throughout the long two hours that the film would have packed a bigger punch if the casting directors had acquired Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder for the lead roles.
Drugstore Cowboy may have been somewhat thought-provoking in 1989 but it hardly deserves mention today when stacked up against Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream. The film was set in 1971 and wouldn't it have been nice to find out why this foursome adored drugs so much? Was it the horrors of Vietnam that upset them? The high of being a product of the flower-child era? The movie refuses to delve into these issues and instead fixates itself solely on the premise that drugs cause damage but are the most important thing in the lives of the foursome. Perhaps the film would have been more entertaining and visionary if it had occurred to the writers and director to use the 1971 setting to explain the characters motivations. The so-called redemption of the Matt Dillon character is merely an attempt to end the movie at the 2 hour point rather than sooner and the scenes with the former drug addicted old man are trite and unnecessary. Drugstore Cowboy has aged badly and should only be viewed by those who use Roger Ebert's advice as their Bible for opinions on movies.
6/10
What did Roger Ebert see in this film that I couldn't? In every scene with Kelly Lynch as Dianne I had an incredible desire to watch paint dry. It was almost as though the casting directors were looking for Juliette Lewis or Winona Ryder but somehow ended up with Kelly Lynch. I never once believed that Dianne and Matt Dillon as Bob were married because Kelly Lynch looked older and more mature than him. It seemed that she was more of a bad mother than a wife to him. Matt Dillon did his best with a fairly one-dimensional character but once again it was almost as though the role was designed for someone else and the directors got stuck with Dillon. Heather Graham found herself in the position of being forced to play the role of a pathetic teenage drifter so that she could write it on her resume and go on to bigger and better things in Boogie Nights. I couldn't help but believe throughout the long two hours that the film would have packed a bigger punch if the casting directors had acquired Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder for the lead roles.
Drugstore Cowboy may have been somewhat thought-provoking in 1989 but it hardly deserves mention today when stacked up against Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream. The film was set in 1971 and wouldn't it have been nice to find out why this foursome adored drugs so much? Was it the horrors of Vietnam that upset them? The high of being a product of the flower-child era? The movie refuses to delve into these issues and instead fixates itself solely on the premise that drugs cause damage but are the most important thing in the lives of the foursome. Perhaps the film would have been more entertaining and visionary if it had occurred to the writers and director to use the 1971 setting to explain the characters motivations. The so-called redemption of the Matt Dillon character is merely an attempt to end the movie at the 2 hour point rather than sooner and the scenes with the former drug addicted old man are trite and unnecessary. Drugstore Cowboy has aged badly and should only be viewed by those who use Roger Ebert's advice as their Bible for opinions on movies.
6/10