In 7 words or less: Eddie jacks in his job to jackoff
What's it all About? Young Eddie Adams (Wahlberg) cleans dishes in a night club but yearns for something more than his mundane non-eventful life. Enter adult film maker Jack Horner (Reynolds) who sees something special in Eddie, 13 inches of specialness to be precise, and offers him the chance to be a star. Cue a modern American classic.
Best bits? The banter that occurs when Eddie meets fellow co-star Reed (John C Riley) is comedy gold. They go from discussing how much weight they can bench press to talking about 'that new movie' Star Wars. Dirk, Eddies new porn name, attempting to cut a record and singing Touch by Stan Bush (made famous from Transformers: The Movie http://www.slumpfilmreviews.com/2011/11/transformers-movie-1986.html) is awesome as is the trailer for his new porn film, Brock Landers: Angels live in my Town. The beauty is that although everyone plays it straight, the subject matter, clothes, and scenarios make it almost a parody of itself. I'm not going to stop listing best bits because there are so many.
One 10 minute section near the end is a real attention grabber and shows the good, the bad and the ugly of the eclectic cast of characters as some of them start to come full circle. Soft bells chime thoughout the section as we witness three of our, now well known and loved, characters suffer highs and lows with dire consequences. It is an incredibly tense 10 minutes that is enthrallingly emotional.
Did it make you think thoughts? The film opens with two back to back 70's classics songs and it reaffirmed The Chief's love of disco. Hot damn I feel like bustin' some moves right now.
The whole 70's vibe is great and It made me think that this should truely be regarded as an epic tale much in the vein of Sergio Leone's Once upon in America. Ok, so it doesn't cover the same time span in that we don't see Eddie/Dirk as a child all the way though to the end of his life but we do get a 10 year snapshot of his meteoric rise to stardom and his subsequent fall.
The crown jewel in all this is the central performance of Mark Wahlberg as the iponimous Dirk Diggler. Wahlberg is often thought of as a tough guy wooden kind of Stallone clone and maybe that is true in some of his performances but here we have without question the best performance of his career. Following Dirk as he goes form dish washer to porn phenom, drug addict, down and out and then back to where he belongs is skillfully handled by Wahlberg and he really gets a chance to let loose with the character. He portrays a tangible child like innocence, and almost a touch of campness, before going off the rails as he envisions himslef being bigger and better and more deserving than those around him.
The film actually contains a plethora of top notch performances with John C Riley, Don Cheadle, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, Alfred Molina, Philip Semour Hoffman and William H Macy all knocking it out of the park, no pun intended. Wow, just look at that cast list. Surely a bag full of Academy awards followed. Well they would have done if not for the usurping dirge that was Titanic.
The only negative I can level at the film is the fact that it clocks in at a little over 2hrs 30 mins. In todays modern popcorn get-in get-out (again no pun intended) viewing audiences this may be just too long but anyone who knows the worth of telling a good story and telling it well will appreciate that all of those 150 minutes are needed. Director PT Anderson showcases all his skills and weaves a tight script with long panning Scorcese-like shots all the while forcing the story along with strong characters who build key relationships. The thing that makes the viewer eager to watch and inquisitive about how it will all end is due to the fact that the film is just so god damn engaging. It literally grabs you by the nutsack like some rabid bulldog and won't let go until the end credits roll. As an aside, whether or not we need to see Dirk's 13 inch python at the end is debatable, although you do get to see what all the fuss has been about.
Would you watch it again? Yes, yes I will.
Rating (out of 100%): When I saw this at the cinema in 1997, the people around me stood up at the end and exclaimed that they thought it was rubbish and didn't get it. Morons, the lot of them. If you don't like this film, you don't like cinema.....fact. I give Boogie Nights a rumpy pumpy 93%
