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Bookmark this pageDrugstore Cowboy (1989)
Director: Gus Van Sant
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Bob (Dillon), his wife Dianne (Lynch), Rich (Le Gros) and Nadine (Graham) are junkies who survive by robbing pharmacies in Portland, Oregon, in 1971. The natural leader of the gang, Bob decides they had better leave town after one too many scrapes with the law. It's Bob, too, who finally elects to straighten out after one of their number ODs. Though hardly earth-shakingly original, Van Sant's low-budget movie takes a cool, contemplative and sometimes comic look at American drug-culture, manages for the most part to dispense with easy moralising, and comes close to grasping why the addiction to chemicals of every kind ('A dope fiend always knows how he's gonna feel'). Despite some Coppola-esque touches with speeding clouds, the stark simplicity of Bob's fantasies suitably complements the overall gritty realism. But it's the acting that carries the day: Dillon's wildly obsessive and sporadically articulate Bob avoids the usual bratpack mannerisms, Remar makes a plausibly boorish cop, and William Burroughs brings a raddled, fragile integrity to the role of a junkie ex-priest Bob meets at a detox hostel.Author: GA
User reviews of this film
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- Justin Press said...
- Posted on May 25 2008 10:29 For an almost pathologically obsessed film historian and ... um film junkie, 'Drugstore Cowboy', for all of its brilliantly portrayed stupidity of getting hooked on pharmaceutical _ see: Stillnox _ when viewed as a tragic -comedy, is my favourite ever film, and Matt Dillon's Bob, the funniest character in film history (with the possible exception of 'Chasing Amy's' Benke. Get off your head and get some laughs, particularly the sound effect of Bob's crowbar on an unsuspecting ordery''s head ...
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- sara thorley said...
- Posted on Sep 12 2007 19:26 i think all of matt dillons films are ace, he really makes them. he absolutly gorgeous, its a shame he doesnt get the credit he deserves. xx
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Cast & crew
Director: Gus Van Sant
Producer: Nick Wechsler, Karen Murphy
Cast: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Le Gros, Heather Graham, Beah Richards, Grace Zabriskie, Max Perlich, William S Burroughs, James Remar full cast
Duration: 101 mins
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