One Paragraph Movie Review: Drugstore Cowboy

One hundred and twentieth film: Drugstore Cowboy. Gus Van Sant and I seem to agree on a few things — the appeal of sartorial scruff and the quiet, depressing beauty of urban fringes for example — but never as much as our mutual agreement that Matt Dillon’s face in 1989 should be looked at very closely and a lot. This is a movie about drug addiction with a side story about how Kelly Lynch’s acting is terrible, and the repetitive, drab jeopardy of both make the viewer feel a bit cold and helpless. Happily feeling cold and helpless is part of the point of this movie, along with superstition, pragmatism, and the rich Richard guy from Sex & The City being a cop without a meaningful plotline. I wasn’t expecting to love William S. Burroughs’ bit part, but when I read he was allowed to write his own lines and then one of those lines was “ I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus”, I had to tip my lid to him. A good, but weirdly empty watch with an outstanding wardrobe. Three ominous hats on the bed out of five.