Drugstore Cowboy

Drugstore Cowboy
by Gus Van Sant

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DVD details

Actor: Eric Hull, Heather Graham, James LeGros, Kelly Lynch, Matt Dillon
Director: Gus Van Sant
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-10-26
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate

DVD Reviews of Drugstore Cowboy

DVD Review: Drug addiction is social addiction
Summary: 5 Stars

One gets addicted to drugs, for sure, but that is only a small part of the business. This film tries to show how the addiction is an attitude, a social behavior, an act of belonging to a group, a community, a social class nearly, but not that far away from it. Here the dependence is threefold. First the girlfriend who is determined to stay addicted because her addiction is moderate enough to be controlled. Then the boyfriend and his own girlfriend and this time there is some status question here and to go on is to belong to a certain level of humanity, a certain level of masculinity. And then there is the wider community of the junkies, dealers and other characters in that farcical, yes farcical, melodrama. Then there are various events that make that addiction stick. The solidarity with the girlfriend with whom he was arrested, busted and jailed. He owes her to go on. Then the boyfriend who is the guarantee that he is normal, a normal male, a real male, a male in one word full stop and period. The cops are chasing them, and bad events happen. The boyfriend's girlfriend dies of an overdose one night in total solitude, while a burglary attempt in the pharmacy of a hospital fails pitifully and pathetically, and they have to get rid of the body and bury her in some woods. That makes you stick to your addiction, to your group. And yet, out of boredom and tiredness, and since one of the group has stepped out and down, he decides to do the same and get out of the hassle it has all become. And then you find out very easily how the wider social group is catching upon him. Two of his old acquaintances, now he is isolated, try to get his stash of drugs, since they are convinced he has one, they refuse to believe he has quitted, and then since they are getting nothing and nowhere they decide to shoot him dead, which they fail doing because they know nothing about using fire-arms. And there we are in the ambulance taking him away. Will he tell who attacked him or not? Will he go back to that world and that habit? We cannot know and say right away, right now. But one thing is sure. If he goes back it would not be for the physiological habit, but for the social and maybe emotional habit. Drug addiction is first of all in the mind and in the social behavior of the addict, not in his physiological parameters.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

DVD Review: Prescription Junkies
Summary: 4 Stars

This too is a good addiction drama. I thought the characters done a good job in acting. This I would suggest watching for addiction to pills.

DVD Review: One of my favorite films
Summary: 5 Stars

"Drugstore Cowboy" is a great movie. It tells the story of husband and wife, Bob and Diane and the younger and more naive couple, Rick and Nadine, who act as a team to steal drugs from pharmacies and hospitals in order to stay high. They seem to have a system of stealing down, in which they steal and hit the road to another pharmacy or hospital location. Although this movie plot can seem depressing (seeing 4 people who are seriously addicted), there are a lot of humourous parts of the movie. I love the scene where Bob interacts with the scared grandma at a motel or the scene where Nadine fakes an epileptic fit. After several incidents of bad luck (when Nadine and Rick mentions dogs, Nadine leaves a hat on a bed) and Nadine's death due to overdose, Bob decides that he needs to give up drugs for good. His wife, Diane, however, seems unwilling to stop with her drug abuse. She becomes Rick's girl as Rick takes over the group. Bob gets a job "drilling holes" and sees that being sober isn't that bad.

I thought this story was captivating from the first 10 minutes. I would recommend it for anyone looking for a good movie.

DVD Review: a demented after-school special... in a good way
Summary: 5 Stars

The entire film is like an extended public service announcement. Though it is entirely unclear whether the film is supposed to make you stay away from drugs... or get involved with them. My favorite scene is where a drugged-out Bob (Matt Dillon in a fabulous performance) fends off his wife's erotic dancing, saying first, "What the f*ck are you DOING?!" and then, "Whaddre you on GLUE or something?!"
In a perfect world, the movie would end with a short segment of a glazed-eye, sweating, head-bandaged Matt Dillon, addressing the audience, clearly strung out. He wipes perspiration from his forehead, says tremulously, "Look, kids... don't you do any f*cki'n smack, OK? This is your uncle Bobby talkin' here.

DVD Review: Drugs Drugs and More Drugs
Summary: 5 Stars

This Indie exceeds all expectations and genuinely takes the viewer on a "trip." Matt Dillon is perfect as the team-leader, Kelly Lynch is always seductive, and it was fun to see Heather Graham in her first film role. She plays good "dead" by the way. The film puts the viewer in a synthetic drug haze, as the team romps, steals, and abuses drugs, especially dilaudid. It is a sheer delight to see William S. Burroughs in this excellently directed drug-recovery film. I think it's Gus van Zandt's finest work because it never takes sides regarding drug use/abuse, gets the most out of Dillon's persona, and is just a very engaging story.

Description of Drugstore Cowboy

Gus Van Sant made his name with this offbeat story of a small group of drug addicts who heist pharmacies to feed their habit. Matt Dillon completely broke with his juvenile persona as Bob, the grungy ringleader and jittery mastermind of a junkie crew. With his frustrated wife Dianne (Kelly Lynch), his loyal partner, the easygoing Rick (James Le Gros), and Rick's juvenile girlfriend Nadine (Heather Graham in an early role), Bob plots ingenious heists and spends the rest of his days sitting around the house getting high. When the heat becomes too intense in Portland, the quartet hits the road for small-town drug stores and hospitals, but when their luck runs out it does so in grand fashion. Set in the Pacific Northwest of 1971, Van Sant so effortlessly re-creates the period that you'd think the film was a time capsule--except for the attitude. Van Sant refuses to moralize and lines his sympathies behind his characters. They're no heroes, but Van Sant can't cast them as villains either. His low-key direction concentrates on the flavor of day-to-day life for a crew of junkies living from fix to fix. Even his drug imagery is inventively placid, a dreamy set of floating visions that suggests their own disembodied states. James Remar costars as the dogged police detective Gentry and cult author William S. Burroughs makes a memorable appearance as the aging junkie Tom the Priest. --Sean Axmaker

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