Boogie Nights (1997)

reviewed by
Jamie Peck


BOOGIE NIGHTS
RATING: *** (out of ****)

New Line / 2:32 / 1997 / R (violence, drugs, sex, nudity, language) Cast: Mark Wahlberg; Burt Reynolds; Julianne Moore; Don Cheadle; Heather Graham; John C. Reilly; William H. Macy; Nicole Parker; Luis Guzman; Philip Baker Hall; Alfred Molina; Nina Hartley Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson

Disco balls, big hair and bellbottoms -- it's the fashionably gory glory days of the 1970s in Paul Thomas Anderson's sophomore feature "Boogie Nights." The movie is already garnering raves and even early fall Oscar buzz, but this critic was left with a slightly sour taste in his mouth. By no means a poor film, or even an unsatisfactory one, "Boogie Nights" manages to keep momentum spinning for over an hour before giving into shaky ground in its final last half. Don't get me wrong -- there's much rich material within its long running time of 150 minutes-plus, but it's being dazzlingly overrated.

Mark Wahlberg (formerly of Marky Mark fame and a lead turn in the stinky "Fear") plays the main character here, a 17-year-old San Fernando Valley busboy named Eddie Adams. Following an escape from his relentlessly tough home life, Eddie falls into the vortex of seemingly painless pleasure that is the adult film industry in '77. His recruiter, porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), is amazed by the kid's prowess on-screen, his benevolence off-screen and his general contributions to the business. Of course, his 13-inch endowment doesn't hurt, either.

The other characters that make up the extended family of entertainers are as follows: Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), Jack's wife and the den mother of their small clan; Rollergirl (Heather Graham), a hot starlet who's willing to take off everything but her skates; Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), a veteran performer who dreams of marriage, children and his own electronics store; Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), an actor who quickly forms a bond with Eddie; and Little Bill (William H. Macy), a technical worker who can never quite come to terms with the people and situations around which he works.

Jack plans to redefine the genre by putting plot into porn -- giving viewers reason to stay in their theater seats after they, uh, don't have the motivation to. Eddie plays an integral part in this quest to make a film that is "true and right and dramatic" -- he changes his name to the highly suggestive Dirk Diggler and takes the starring role of a James Bond-type hero with more of a focus on the women and sex than the gadgets and foreign intrigue (sample title: "Brock Landers 7: Oral Majesty"). But as Dirk, Jack, Amber and company make the transition into the early 1980s, the pornography progresses from film to video and their happy lives and sense of togetherness are threatened by ego, violence, drugs and other extremes.

"Boogie Nights" tells a story that depends on its characters and for the most part, it succeeds. Wahlberg, Reynolds, Moore and Reilly are all fantastic creations: funny, flawed and full of life. Some members of the supporting cast come across with colorful personalities even though they aren't fully developed -- they're allowed to stay too much in the background. You come away wishing you got to know Macy, Graham and Cheadle better, because what you're given are interesting details that don't amount to anything especially complete. All of the actors are strong, including a performance by Reynolds that ranks among his best work.

What restrains the movie from achieving a higher ground is a quite jarring shift in tone, which takes place around the time that Little Bill makes a disturbing resolution to the ongoing dilemma of constantly finding his wife (actual porn star Nina Hartley) in compromising positions with other men. From then on, "Boogie Nights" is less a satire of the industry than a commentary on its evils, as these characters are sucked down into a vortex of drugs, death and lascivious sex crimes. The movie's final sequence is hopeful, but its sure-to-be-controversial last frame is rather unnecessary.

Flaws aside, "Boogie Nights" is still a subversive, gutsy release from New Line Cinema, a production company that usually specializes in ho-hum genre pictures. It's a visual dynamo, a credit guaranteed from Anderson's brilliant opening, a single-shot journey inside a disco club that introduces us to most of the movie's main players. That the story eventually spins out of control is forgivable, because the film is such a technical marvel, accurate in its depiction of the 1970s from clothes to hair to music (I still haven't stopped humming Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not to Come"). And even the movie's fumble of overlength doesn't hinder it from being fully alive, because "Boogie Nights" is an admirably enthusiastic jolt of cinematic caffeine -- you're never bored with it.

When all said and done, "Boogie Nights" is an admirable picture, even if its shortcomings (no pun intended) amount to more than expected. The acting is distinguished, and the storytelling, for a long while, is extremely well-crafted; there's just no reason to stretch everything out to less than 30 minutes shy of three hours. In the end, "Boogie Nights" is pretty similar to Dirk Diggler -- quite a sight but little more than the sum of its parts, however nifty they might be.

© 1997 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit the Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/


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